Team:SCAU-China
Heavy Metals, such as Cadmium (Cd), Zinc (Zn), Copper (Cu) originated from mining, agriculture, industrial and residential settings, are usually toxic to plants, animals and human beings at high concentrations. They may enter the human body through food, water, air, or absorption through the skin. Therefore, heavy metal pollution becomes a big environmental issue in modern society.
Bioremediation is one of measures to remove toxins, pollutants or wastes from soil and water using living organisms. Phytoremediation emerges as an environment-friendly and low-cost technology using green plants and/or associated microorganisms to detoxify heavy metals from contaminated environment. In this project, our team (SCAU-China) aims to make use of a single-celled eukaryotic organism—Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to establish a bioremediation technology called Molecular Magnet for cleanup of heavy metals in the water.
Autophagy is a major intracellular degradation system for damaged proteins and organelles. Using genetic engineering, we fused Atg8-interacting motif (AIM) with metal-ion binding protein, and expressed the fusion protein in the C. reinhardtii to create a Molecular Magnet for heavy metals. The heavy metal ions therefore serve as prey and are specifically enriched by the Molecular Magnet and transported into the vacuoles of C. reinhardtii via Autophagosome, thus removing from the natural water bodies.
We designed a special hardware allowing the growth of genetic modified C. reinhardtii in automatic cruising equipment. The hardware was equipped with navigation satellite system, so it can move to any polluted water bodies in unmanned manner. Our project has great application potential for in situ remediation process of polluted rivers or lakes.
