Differential expression of genes coding for ABC transporters after treatment of Arabidopsis thaliana with xenobiotics

ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters are thought to be involved in many cellular detoxification mechanisms. Performing a BLAST search, we found four distinct expressed sequence tags (EST) of Arabidopsis thaliana highly similar to the human and fungal glutathione-conjugate ABC transporters. We studied the expression of the corresponding genes in response to various xenobiotics in an effort to gain information on their function. The abundance of transcripts corresponding to one of the genes (EST1) was not affected by the various compounds tested, whereas the abundance of transcripts corresponding to the other three genes (EST2, EST3, EST4) was increased by 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene, primisulfuron and IRL 1803. Treatment of Arabidopsis with either primisufuron or IRL 1803 resulted in a more than 40-fold increase in EST2-specific transcripts.