Heavy-duty tree -🌳🔩- Focus on Nickel hyperaccumulation
📚 Pycnandra acuminata, is a large tree endemic to New Caledonia, that has attracted the attention of scientists because of its vivid blue-green latex that contains up to 257,000 µg/g Nickel, the highest Ni concentration ever found in a living organism.
💡 Nickel is an essential mineral element for higher plants, but it is required in extremely low concentrations.
🌱 The exposure of most plant species to elevated Ni concentrations alters the uptake of Fe and Mg, causing chlorosis, and reducing growth.
⚠️ It has been demonstrated that Pycnandra acuminata can resist extreme Ni concentrations in solution (up to 3,000 µM), and dosing at 100 µM Ni can be even beneficial to growth.
🔬 Laticifer cells (internal secretory structures for secondary metabolites) are weaponized with toxic Ni-citrate salt which is hypothesized to be an evolutionary adaptation against herbivores and pathogens.
📷 Image: laticifers cells of P. acuminata filled with Ni-rich latex (green shows nickel, pink shows calcium) [credits: Antony van der Ent; hard x-ray scanning microscope at beamline P06 of DESY, Hamburg]
Heavy-duty tree 🌳 Focus on Nickel hyperaccumulation
