Development of a biomarker for metal bioavailability: The lettuce fatty acid composition

Abstract

Because Lactuca sativa L. is a plant widely used in ecotoxicological analyses, a study was developed to determine whether the fatty acid composition of lettuce leaves could be used as an additional biomarker of soil contamination by metals such as Pb, Cu, Zn, and Cd. Unlike seed germination or seedling growth, the fatty acid composition of lettuce leaves differed significantly between uncontaminated and field metal-contaminated soils. Hence, this lipid biomarker might provide an early indication of a plant's exposure to metals and the potential bioavailability of metals, and could facilitate or strengthen the diagnosis of soil contamination. Not only is the experimental protocol cheap, rapid, and easy, but the values of the lipid biomarker are highly reproducible when seedlings are grown at the same light intensity. In addition, the values of the biomarker did not vary greatly when 14- to 18-day-old plants were analyzed and when slight differences were introduced in the experimental conditions used to determine the leaf fatty acid composition.