Identification of the binding forms of cadmium during accumulation by water hyacinth

Abstract It is well known that the plants are capable to hyperaccumulation but despite their extensive use for water cleaning in environment, the essence of this phenomenon remains unclear. This paper is focused on the development of methodology for the determination of peptides binding forms of the metal in plants on the example of cadmium and water hyacinth. The suggested approach is based on the analytes extraction followed by their HPLC separation with UV and element-selective detection, and at last amino acids and sulfide groups determination in the isolated fractions containing cadmium, and for this, the optimal parameters for the interfacing of microcolumn chromatograph and ICP-OES spectrometer have been developed. It has been shown as a result that cadmium-containing compounds can be attributed to peptides similar to phytochelatins. This approach provides an information concerning the nature of the compounds responsible for the act of detoxification during bioaccumulation process.