Spathiphyllum's ability to filter the air for contaminants

[Dirk Broenink]

I'm a noob at DIYbio, and synthetic biology. I know some basics.

The Spathiphyllum plant is able to clean the air of some common contaminants (benzene and formaldehyde are mentioned on the wiki page). If someone wanted to find out what genes are responsible for this behavior, how would he do that? If the genes that are responsible for this behavior are known, could those genes be inserted in other organisms in order to make them perform the same behavior?

Thanks for your time and attention.

[Nathan McCorkle]

Cool, seems like most plants would help with this, unfortunately the
references on the wiki page aren't so helpful, New York Times and HGTV
and a site selling plants:
http://www.airsopure.nl/ArtikelCategorie/Overzicht

Not the most trustworthy sources! One site mentions NASA did some work
on this, try finding some of their work!

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--
-Nathan

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Hm, you could grow them in a benzol containing atmosphere, and a control culture without benzol.

Thus, you do reverse transcriptase PCR and see which "genes are switched on" or upregulated. Those likely are benzol degrading genes (and likely some stress-induced "hormones" )

But there is a possibility that some of them are constituive (always on).

[code elusive]

hello

The reference for the NASA study is:
Wolverton BC, et al. "Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement. Final Report" September 15, 1989. Stennis Space Center, MS:Science and Technology Laboratory, John C. Stennis Space Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The 1989 report of the study is available at Wolverton's website [1] and the study tested, amongst other plants, Spathiphyllum "Mauna Loa" (Peace Lily) in a plexiglas chamber.

It is also mentioned in this 2011 short article "Planting Healthier Indoor Air", by Luz Claudio, Environ Health Perspect. 2011 October; 119(10): a426–a427 [2].


[1] http://www.wolvertonenvironmental.com/NASA-Report-89.pdf
[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230460/