Research Center for Biology, Indonesia Institute of Sciences (LIPI) Jalan Raya Jakarta Bogor KM. 46 Cibinong, West Java, Indonesia

Email: dw.setyo19@gmail.com

Pollution, especially that caused by heavy metals, has become a serious problem around the world. Adverse effects arising from the increased use of heavy metals in a variety of human activities lead to any environmental degradation. Lead (Pb) is one of the most common heavy metal contaminants in the environment and is highly toxic. Pb is less mobile so its compound tends to accumulate in soil and sediments. Definitely, efforts are needed to remove this contaminant in the environment. Saccharum spontaneum L. is a perennial grass which has the potential to be used as an accumulator plant to clean up pollutants in the environment. The ability of this plant as metal accumulator was tested in this study.  S.pontaneum plants were treated by using lead (Pb) in the concentrations of 0 ppm (control), 100 ppm, 200 ppm, and 300 ppm for a period of 8 weeks. The results pointed out that there was an increase in the percentage of relative accumulation of Pb in the treated plants. This also indicated that plant roots accumulated more Pb than shoots. Meanwhile, the expression of Phytochelatin synthase (PCS) gene increased 1.3 to 3.5 fold inductions in the roots by increasing the concentration of Pb treatments for24 h. PCS gene expression showed the higher induction in the roots than in the shoots of S.spontaneum plant under Pb treatments