A comprehensive review on the role of ABCC transporters in heavy metal stress tolerance in plants

Heavy Metal (Loid) contamination in water and soil leads to considerable damage to food crops cultivated on these affected lands by altering the plants’ physiological and molecular activities. This, in turn, poses serious threats to the lives of people consuming such crops. So it is necessary to produce heavy metal-tolerant plants that can combat this dire situation. These plants can be created through molecular techniques that utilize transgenic technologies. This method is always considered a superior option to traditional breeding methods. This study elucidates the role of a specific class of active membrane pumps known as ATP-binding cassette type C (ABCC) transporters in heavy metal stress tolerance. The ABCC-type transporter family, also called multidrug resistance-associated proteins (MRPs), is the third-largest subfamily of ABC-type transporters in plants. In addition to metal detoxification, this protein family is involved in multiple other functions in plants in the presence of specific phosphorylation, maintenance of cellular homeostasis and development. Since ABC transporters are ubiquitously present in all higher plants, it can be hypothesized that genetic engineering techniques using these transporters will be a promising approach for creating heavy metal-tolerant transgenic plants. We aimed to study the activity of ABCC1 transporters in plants so that the malicious effects of certain heavy metals, such as arsenic, lead, and cadmium, can be prevented. Studies were conducted in Arabidopsis thaliana mainly to observe such heavy metal arsenic tolerance effects. Soil contains several heavy metals that are detrimental to plants, e.g., As, Cd, Cr, and Pb. Some plants study & other plants to arrest heavy metal storage.