Arsenate phytoremediation-linked genes in Egyptian rice cultivars as soil pollution dna geno-sensor

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the most important crop all over the world. It is considered the main food of 50% of the world population especially in Egypt. However, rice not only accumulates some of heavy metals such as cadmium but also accumulate arsenate (As). Arsenic contamination in water and food resulted in many implications for millions of people leading cancer. For that reason, three local rice cultivars; Sakha 102, 103 and 104 were propagated on modified Murashige and Skoog Basal Medium (MS medium) containing elevated concentrations of arsenate (0.1, 1 and 10 mg/l). The three varieties showed different resistant attitudes against arsenate. Extracted messenger RNA (mRNA) from treated and untreated Sakha 104 plantlets was scanned using differential display to demonstrate the differentially expressed genes in response to arsenate contamination. About 100 different RNAs with molecular sizes ranged between 50-1500 bp were obtained. Seven up-regulated and several down regulated genes were observed. The seven up regulated genes were sequenced and the sequence analysis described four genes are; disease resistance protein RPM1, Epstein-Barr virus EBNA-1-like, CwfJ family protein and outer membrane lipoprotein OmIA while the other three genes were hypothetical proteins. The four up regulated genes showed different percentage of similarity with other well identified genes that play role in arsenate phytoremediation such as; arsenate reductase, oxidase and aminoacylase 1. These genes were specifically induced in respond to the presence of arsenate in rice soil and they share in pathway to phytoremidate arsenate by the rice. In future work these genes can be used as geno-sensors for rice grains and soil contamination with As (V).