Scientists are reporting discovery of the biological secrets that enable plants growing near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to adapt and flourish in highly radioactive soil – legacy of the 1986 nuclear disaster in the Ukraine. Their study, which helps solve a long-standing mystery, appears in ACS' Environmental Science and Technology, a semi-monthly journal.
Martin Hajduch and colleagues note that plants have an unexpected ability to adapt to an environment contaminated with radiation following the April 26, 1986 accident at the Chernobyl.
Their previous research, for example, showed that soybean plants in the area have adapted to the contaminated soil with certain changes in their proteome. A proteome is the full complement of proteins produced by the genes in a plant or animal. But the broader range of biochemical changes in plants that allow them to thrive in this harsh environment remained unclear.
The scientists grew flax seeds in radiation-contaminated soil in the Chernobyl region and compared their growth to those of seeds grown in non-radioactive soil. Radiation exposure had relatively little effect on the protein levels in the plants, with only about five percent of the proteins altered, they note.
Among them were certain proteins involved in cell signaling, or chemical communication, which might help the plants shrug-off radioactivity, the scientists suggest.
Abstract Introduction
The accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) on April 26, 1986, is considered the most serious nuclear disaster in history. The explosion released large quantities of radionuclides into the environment.
Since the accident, the radiological situation in the exclusion zone has stabilized and the high-dose-rate acute radiation has been replaced with persistent low-dose-rate chronic exposure.
Unexpectedly, the flora and fauna of the radio-contaminated area have been able to adapt to conditions of permanently increased ionizing radiation (IR).
To investigate molecular mechanisms that allow plants in Chernobyl to environmentally adapt, genomics and proteomics approaches were applied previously. For instance, the polymerase chain reaction was used to profile wheat plants grown in contaminated and control fields and an increase in the microsatellite mutation rate was detected.
A quantitative proteomics approach was used to analyze soybean seeds harvested from plants grown in either contaminated or control plots of Chernobyl area, and a working model for plant adaptation to life in a high-IR environment was developed. Overall the results from these studies indicate that survival in the radio-contaminated environment required changes at both the DNA and protein levels.
However, the complete bases for plant survival in a radio-contaminated environment remain undefined.
Herein, the analysis of mature seeds of flax grown in either radio-contaminated or control plots in Chernobyl area is presented. The analyses employed quantitative high-throughput methods based on 2-DE followed by tandem mass spectrometry for protein identification.
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