Organisms living in environments polluted with heavy metals develop tolerance against these contaminants. The tolerance has been attributed to the ability to synthesize metal binding substances. These recent findings imply metal binding complexes from animals and plants, although having very similar functional properties, may have entirely different amino acid compositions. Researchers reported that cadystin from fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe was composed of only glutamic acid, cysteine, and glycine. A year later, a heavy metal binding substance was isolated from Rauwolfia serpetina which contains only Glu, Cys, and Gly. Heavy metal binding complexes isolated from the water hyacinth and morning glory Datura innoxia also showed an amino acid composition similar to cadystin or phytochelatin. In this study, the cadmium binding protein induced in the marine diatom, Phaeodactylum tricornutum, was isolated and purified and its amino acid composition determined.