Emphasizing the Toxicity of Heavy Metal Ions on Plants: Monitoring with an Amino Acids Assay

• Main Authors: Olga PINTILIE, Marius ZAHARIA, Lucia TUDORACHI, Sabina BĂNCILĂ, Gabi DROCHIOIU, Ion SANDU
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Galati University Press 2014-03-01
• Series: The Annals of “Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati. Fascicle IX, Metallurgy and Materials Science
• Subjects: biostructure; determining amino acids; hypoxia; germination tests; heavy metals; ninhydrin reagent
• Online Access: https://www.gup.ugal.ro/ugaljournals/index.php/mms/article/view/2647
• ISSN: 2668-4748; 2668-4756

In order to emphasize modifications on living organisms resulted from interaction with heavy metals, we applied a simple, sensitive, quick, inexpensive and reproducible method. It evaluates modifications through determining released amino acids. This method comprises three stages: treating plants with the investigated heavy metals, extracting resulted amino acids and dosing them with a ninhydrin reagent. The colored solution resulted from ninhydrin dosing is spectrophotometrically measured at 516 nm. The Lambert-Beer law is valid within the concentration field of 0-20 μg mL–1. .