Plant Uptake of Pharmaceuticals: Insights from Model Plants.

Treated wastewater is being increasingly used to irrigate food crops in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Conventional wastewater treatment processes are only partially effective in removing many pharmaceuticals from treated wastewater. This results in the exposure of food crops to these contaminants in irrigation water and can lead to their accumulation in edible tissues. We used the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana to investigate processes influencing accumulation of pharmaceutical compounds in above ground tissues, taking advantage of the genetic resources developed for this species. We used mutant strains to test hypotheses about exposure routes and examined mixture effects on accumulation using a combination of uptake experiments, toxicity tests, and whole genome transcriptomics. We will discuss insights on plant accumulation of pharmaceuticals gained from these and other approaches.