Arsenic Methylation in Arabidopsis thaliana Expressing an Algal Arsenite Methyltransferase Gene Increases Arsenic Phytotoxicity

Arsenic (As) contamination in soil can lead to elevated transfer of As to the food chain. One potential mitigation strategy is to genetically engineer plants to enable them to transform inorganic As to methylated and volatile As species. In this study, we genetically engineered two ecotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana with the arsenite (As(III)) S-adenosylmethyltransferase (arsM) gene from the eukaryotic alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The transgenic A. thaliana plants gained a strong ability to methylate As, converting most of the inorganic As into dimethylarsenate [DMA(V)] in the shoots. Small amounts of volatile As were detected from the transgenic plants. However, the transgenic plants became more sensitive to As(III) in the medium, suggesting that DMA(V) is more phytotoxic than inorganic As. The study demonstrates a negative consequence of engineered As methylation in plants and points to a need for arsM genes with a strong ability to methylate As to volatile species.