14 DAY TRIAL // Arsenic is one of the most commonly occurring natural poisons that appear inside plants around the world, and a team of experts believes that it may have just discovered two genes that are responsible for allowing for this to happen.
Food-based arsenic is a major public health concern in numerous countries, and is not by far a problem limited only to the developing or Third World, experts say.
The two genes, which experts believe play a large role in allowing plants to store the dangerous chemical, were discovered by scientists at the University of Skovde, in Sweden.
Arsenic can be both natural and anthropogenic (man-made), and it can be found in sediments, and ground and surface waters as well.
Multiple poisoning cases have been recorded on countries such as Bangladesh, the United States and Taiwan, where the chemical has been linked to the appearance of conditions such as gangrene, skin and bladder cancer, peripheral vascular disease, and hyperpigmentation, or Black-foot disease.
The research team that conducted the investigation used computer models to simulate either under- or over-expression of these two genes, and determined that arsenic storage levels can be forced to drop in plants by as much as 12 percent.
The group reveals that it plans to move the research into the tightly-controlled confines of a scientific lab, so that they can conduct the investigation using real plant.
If the findings hold in the new work as well, then this could open the way for agriculture and soil experts to develop new method of reducing the amount of arsenic that currently exists in plants.
Additional conditions that arsenic intoxication, or accumulation in the body, can cause include liver, kidneys, and heart diseases, and all of these disorders can be fatal if not treated in time.
Details of the new investigation are published in the latest issue of the esteemed scientific Journal of Biological Systems, AlphaGalileo reports.
The work was conducted by scientists based in the Systems Biology Research Center, at the University of Skövde. Experts in Bangladesh, Poland, and the US also collaborated for the research.
Over the centuries, arsenic has been used as a potent poison, and many people were taking increasingly large doses of the stuff, in order to become immune to its effects.
Some of the most renowned people killed by arsenic include Simon Bolivar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Francesco I de Medici.