摘要：Environmental pollution by heavy metals is an actual problem. Their cytotoxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic effects have been discovered recently. Phyto or bioremediation are environmental-friendly methods for metals removal from water and soils. Plant phytoremediation potential is limited by their tolerance to heavy metals, other benefits are metal accumulation in shoots and production of high amount of biomass. To increase the binding capacity of heavy metals transgenic plants expressing a fusion protein combining CUP1 gene encoding yeast metallothionein and gene for polyhistidine tag from commercial plasmid pTrc-HisA (HisCUP), which was transformed via A. tumefaciens into tobacco plants. The aim of this article was to determine metallothionein content in transgenic tobacco plants exposed to 250 µM CdCl2. A marked MT induction was found in the whole plant, especially in stem. Change in MT content corresponded to change of low-molecular thiol compounds. The obtained results indicate that MT is in experimental plants induced by heavy metal and it is involved in plant detoxication mechanisms
