Thlaspi caerulescens, an attractive model species to study heavy metal hyperaccumulation in plants

Studying heavy metal hyperaccumulation is becoming more and more interesting for ecological, evolutionary, nutritional, and environmental reasons. One model species, especially in the era of high throughput genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics technologies, would be very advantageous. Although there are several hyperaccumulator species known, there is no single model species yet. The Zn, Cd and Ni hyperaccumulator species Thlaspi caerulescens has been studied to a great extent, especially for Zn and Cd hyperaccumulation and tolerance. Its physiological, morphological and genetic characteristics, and its close relationship to Arabidopsis thaliana, the general plant reference species, make it an excellent candidate to be the plant heavy metal hyperaccumulation model species.