ABSTRACT
Environmental contamination with heavy metals comes from a variety of sources. Many systems, employing living or non-living microorganisms rather than plants, have been developed for removal of cadmium and other heavy metals from the environment. Cadmium accumulation by hairy roots was followed over a period of up to 50 h using media containing cadmium inoculated with 14-d-old roots in the ratio of 1 g fresh weight to 50 mL of liquid medium. All accumulation studies were performed in triplicate. The accumulation of cadmium from liquid medium by hairy root cultures was, after preliminary selection, studied mostly using Solanum nigrum clone SNC-90. This clone grew well with a high branching frequency. The effect of different compositions of test solution on cadmium uptake by roots was examined using 0.1 M MES, 0.1 M acetate, 0.1 M citrate and 0.1 M phosphate buffers, and a 0.05 M sodium borate solution with pH adjusted by HNO3.
