Transgenic merA and merB expression reduces mercury contamination in vegetables and grains grown in mercury-contaminated soil.

key messageArabidopsis, tobacco, tomato and rice with merA/merB expressed reduced mercury concentration of leaves, fruits or grains. These mercury-breathing plants produce agricultural products with acceptable levels of mercury from contaminated soil. Mercury contamination in plant food products can cause serious health risks to consumers. Transgenic approaches to enhance mercury phytoremediation have been accomplished with expression of bacterial merA and merB genes to convert toxic organic mercury to less toxic elemental mercury. However, little is known whether these genes can be used to produce safe foods from plants grown on mercury-contaminated land. We have used Arabidopsis and tobacco as model plants for leafy vegetables, and tomato and rice as representative fruit and grain crops to investigate whether merA and merB expression allows for production of safe foods from mercury-contaminated soils. Our results show that grown on heavily contaminated land with mercury, merA and merB expressing transgenic plants can produce vegetables, fruits and grains safe for human and animal consumption, while the wild-type plants cannot. The merA and merB transgenic plants can also efficiently remove mercury from soil. With increasing mercury contamination problems for the agricultural land worldwide, the use of the merA and merB genes can help produce safe food from mercury-polluted land and also remediate contaminated soils.