Rice Plant Resists Arsenic

Rice plant astol1 | © Sheng-Kai Sun / Nature Communications - The agricultural cultivation of the staple food of rice harbours the risk of possible contamination with arsenic that can reach the grains following uptake by the roots. In their investigation of over 4,000 variants of rice, a Chinese-German research team under the direction of Rüdiger Hell from the Centre for Organismal Studies (COS) of Heidelberg University and Fang-Jie Zhao of Nanjing Agricultural University (China) discovered a plant variant that resists the toxin. Although the plants thrive in arsenic-contaminated fields, the grains contain far less arsenic than other rice plants. At the same time, this variant has an elevated content of the trace element selenium. The researchers explain that especially in agricultural regions in Asia, increasing amounts of the metalloid arsenic get into the groundwater through large-scale fertilisation or wastewater sludge, for example. Because rice is cultivated in submerged fields, the plants absorb a good deal of arsenic through the roots, thus giving the potential carcinogen a pathway into the food chain. According to Prof. Hell, arsenic pollution in some soils in Asia is now so high that it is also causing significant crop losses because the arsenic is poisonous to the plants themselves.