Abiotic stress, like a heavy metal exposure, is able to damage growth and productivity of plants. Consequences of such heavy metal exposures to metabolic pathways were studied in the important crop Hordeum vulgare L. (barley, cv. Barke and Scarlett) in tests with mercury, cadmium and platinum. To this extent, in-vitro cultures were grown on a hydroponic culture system developed and patented during this thesis. Furthermore, barley was grown on heavy metal contaminated soil and culture substrate. With subtractive-suppression-hybridization, micro- and macroarray analysis the consequences to the metabolic pathways in leafs and roots of Hordeum vulgare L. were investigated at a molecular level. Numerous genes were found induced or repressed as a result of heavy metal exposure. Changes in morphology and the protein expression were observed due to heavy metal exposure, too. Furthermore, a new detoxification system in plants for mercury is described. It was proved, that mercuric ions (Hg2+) are reduced in the plant by ascorbic acid to elemental mercury (Hg0) which evaporates via stomata.
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Abiotic stress, like a heavy metal exposure, is able to damage growth and productivity of plants. Consequences of such heavy metal exposures to metabolic pathways were studied in the important crop Hordeum vulgare L. (barley, cv. Barke and Scarlett) in tests with mercury, cadmium and platinum. To this extent, in-vitro cultures were grown on a hydroponic culture system developed and patented during this thesis. Furthermore, barley was grown on heavy metal contaminated soil and culture substrate....
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