Abstract
The fresh water unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii was used to explore whether it could function as a model system to identify proteins that are differentially expressed in response to arsenate exposure. Cells were treated with different concentrations of arsenate ranging from 100 - 400 μM. When exposed to 200 μM arsenate, the amount of live cells started to lessen on the second day and continued to diminish, indicating a toxic effect of arsenate. Proteomic analysis was used to investigate if these cells showed a specific response to arsenic-induced stress. Fifteen proteins were found that were over-expressed in the 200 μM arsenate-treated samples and two proteins were found to be very strongly over-expressed in samples treated with 400 μM. These were selected for identification using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. Oxidative stress and protein damage were the major effects as shown by the up-regulation of Mn-superoxide dismutase, an oxygen-evolving enhancer protein, a chaperonin-like protein and a heat shock protein.
Highlights
Arsenic (As) contamination of ground water and soil adversely affects human health and causes major environmental problems
The fresh water unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii was used to explore whether it could function as a model system to identify proteins that are differentially expressed in response to arsenate exposure
Other than a few proteomic-level studies about arsenic accumulation such as in rice plants [28] and in the Dwarf Sunflower [12] and Pteris vittata [29], very little has been reported about proteome changes upon arsenic stress in Chlamydomonas
Summary
Arsenic (As) contamination of ground water and soil adversely affects human health and causes major environmental problems. Phytoextraction, one of the major processes in phytoremediation, has been utilized to clean up metal-contaminated soil and water [4] It employs the potential of certain higher plants to uptake and concentrate toxic substances from the environment into its biomass. Other than a few proteomic-level studies about arsenic accumulation such as in rice plants [28] and in the Dwarf Sunflower [12] and Pteris vittata [29], very little has been reported about proteome changes upon arsenic stress in Chlamydomonas. This study is based on the premise that C. reinhardtii might be useful to investigate the effects of As exposure and to search for differential expression of proteins in order to see 1) if the response includes oxygen stress as found previously in the Dwarf Sunflower and 2) if other proteins such as metal-binding proteins could be identified
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