Plants strictly regulate the uptake and distribution of Zinc (Zn), which is essential for growth and development. Arabidopsis thaliana plant cadmium resistance 2 (AtPCR2), a protein containing a placenta-specific 8 domain (PLAC8), is specifically expressed in the vascular tissue and epidermis of roots and is thought to act as a Zn efflux transporter (Song et al. 2010). Proteins containing PLAC8 domain function as major organ size regulators in Solanum lycopersicum and Zea may, and putative metal ion transporters in Arabidopsis thaliana, Oryza sativa and Brassica juncea. But, there are no reports which showed that the protein containing PALC8 have the function both of seed size regulation and metal homeostasis. In our study, we found that plant cadmium resistance 1 (PCR1) influences on both Zn accumulation and grain weight in rice. The expression of OsPCR1 is elevated in developing seeds of introgression line for GW2, which encodes a protein known to regulate grain weight. Grain weight of OsPCR1 knockout and knockdown lines decreased than the wild type, while OsPCR1 overexpression lines produced heavier grains. Furthermore, the grains of OsPCR1 knockdown lines exhibited substantially higher Zn and lower Cd concentrations than the control. We identified some variation in the OsPCR1 amino acid sequence between the japonica and indica rice types using 15 different rice varieties. Japonica-type PCR1 had a shorter N-terminus than did PCR1 in the other rice types. Furthermore, japonica-type grains accumulated less Zn than did indica-type grains. Our study suggests that rice PCR1 maintains metal ion homeostasis and grain weight and might have been selected for during domestication.

This study was performed to develop the biological treatment technology of wastewater polluted with heavy metals. Zinc-tolerant microorganism, such as Pseudomonas chlororaphis which possessed the ability to accumulate zinc, was isolated from industrial wastewaters polluted with various heavy metals. The characteristics of zinc accumulation in the cells, recovery of the zinc from the cells accumulating zinc, were investigated. Removal rate of zinc from the solution containing 100 ㎎/ℓ of zinc by zinc-tolerant microorganism was more than 90% at 48 hours after inoculation of the microorganisms. A large number of the electron-dense granules were found mainly on the cell wall and membrane fractions, when determined by transmission electron microscope. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy revealed that the electron-dense granules were zinc complex with the substances binding heavy metals. The zinc accumulated into cells was not desorbed by distilled water, but more than 80% of the zinc accumulated was desorbed by 0.1M-EDTA. The residues of the cells after combustion at 550℃ amounted to about 21% of the dry weight of the cells. EDS analysis showed that the residues were comparatively pure zinc compounds containing more than 79% of zinc.