Kovalchuk Igor, Kovalchuk Olga
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, T1K 3M4, Canada.
Sensors (Basel). 2008 Mar 10;8(3):1539-1558. doi: 10.3390/s8031539.
Rapid technological development is inevitably associated with manyenvironmental problems which primarily include pollution of soil, water and air. In manycases, the presence of contamination is difficult to assess. It is even more difficult toevaluate its potential danger to the environment and humans. Despite the existence ofseveral whole organism-based and cell-based models of sensing pollution and evaluationof toxicity and mutagenicity, there is no ideal system that allows one to make a quick andcheap assessment. In this respect, transgenic organisms that can be intentionally altered tobe more sensitive to particular pollutants are especially promising. Transgenic plantsrepresent an ideal system, since they can be grown at the site of pollution or potentiallydangerous sites. Plants are ethically more acceptable and esthetically more appealing thananimals as sensors of environmental pollution. In this review, we will discuss varioustransgenic plant-based models that have been successfully used for biomonitoringgenotoxic pollutants. We will also discuss the benefits and potential drawbacks of thesesystems and describe some novel ideas for the future generation of efficient transgenicphytosensors.
快速的技术发展不可避免地伴随着许多环境问题，这些问题主要包括土壤、水和空气污染。在许多情况下，污染的存在很难评估。评估其对环境和人类的潜在危害则更加困难。尽管存在几种基于全生物体和基于细胞的污染传感以及毒性和致突变性评估模型，但没有一种理想的系统能够进行快速且廉价的评估。在这方面，能够有意改变以对特定污染物更敏感的转基因生物特别有前景。转基因植物代表了一种理想的系统，因为它们可以在污染现场或潜在危险地点生长。作为环境污染的传感器，植物在伦理上比动物更容易被接受，在美学上也更具吸引力。在这篇综述中，我们将讨论各种已成功用于生物监测遗传毒性污染物的基于转基因植物的模型。我们还将讨论这些系统的优点和潜在缺点，并描述一些关于下一代高效转基因植物传感器的新想法。
