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Radioisotopes and Nuclear Imaging Help Track Effects of Soil Contaminants

Niels van der Lelie’s team in Brookhaven Lab’s Biology Department is collaborating with scientists in the Chemistry Department to gain a better understanding of how the introduction of contaminant-eating bacteria might alter normal plant function. Their approach uses some of the techniques developed for medical imaging  More...

“Beefed Up” Plant-Dwelling Bacteria Boost Phytoremediation

Brookhaven biologists and their collaborators in Belgium think they’ve found a way to improve plants’ use in environmental cleanup: transfer genes from pollutant-degrading bacteria into bacteria residing in the plants so the resident bacteria can help the plants break down the pollutants.
— Karen McNulty Walsh

Niels van der Lelie

Using plants to soak up and degrade environmental pollutants, a strategy known as phytoremediation, can be more successful in theory than in practice. The accumulated pollutants or their metabolites sometimes kill the plants or evaporate via the leaves back into the atmosphere. But scientists at Brookhaven Lab and their collaborators in Belgium think they’ve found a way to improve the process: transfer genes from pollutant-degrading bacteria into bacteria residing in the plants so the resident bacteria can help the plants break down the pollutants.

In a recent test study, plants inoculated with the “beefed-up” bacteria survived in toluene-contaminated soil and increased the degradation of the pollutant. The research, which was funded by the European Commission, the Ford Motor Company, and Brookhaven Lab, appeared in the May 2004 issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology.

“By introducing genes for the appropriate degradation pathways into natural plantdwelling bacteria, known as endophytes, we should be able to tailor-make plants capable of cleaning up a variety of organic pollutants,” said Brookhaven biologist Daniel (Niels) van der Lelie, one of the lead authors on the paper. He also envisions introducing pollutant-degrading pathways into bacteria that live in crop plants to reduce the residues of pesticides and herbicides that make their way into our food.

Van der Lelie maintains that the technique should win widespread acceptance because it uses only naturally occurring bacteria and natural gene-transfer methods.

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One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.