TY - JOUR
T1 - A genomic perspective of metal-resistant bacteria from gold particles
T2 - Possible survival mechanisms during gold biogeochemical cycling
AU - Sanyal, Santonu Kumar
AU - Reith, Frank
AU - Shuster, Jeremiah
N1 - Funding Information:
In memory of Frank Reith-our dear friend, mentor and colleague. His passion for research and sharing the joy of science and discovery will be cherished by his students, postdoctoral fellows and collaborators. Funding for this research was made possible by the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (ARCFT100150200). Electron microscopy and microanalysis were performed at Adelaide Microscopy, an Australian Microscopy, and Microanalysis Research Facility. Authors would like to thank SM Pederson, A Basak, K Neubauer and T Reith for their technical support. The authors also thank the editor and reviewers for their constructive feedback.
Publisher Copyright:
© FEMS 2020. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]
PY - 2020/7
Y1 - 2020/7
N2 - A bacterial consortium was enriched from gold particles that 'experienced' ca. 80 years of biotransformation within waste-rock piles (Australia). This bacterial consortium was exposed to 10 μM AuCl3 to obtain Au-tolerant bacteria. From these isolates, Serratia sp. and Stenotrophomonas sp. were the most Au-tolerant and reduced soluble Au as pure gold nanoparticles, indicating that passive mineralisation is a mechanism for mediating the toxic effect of soluble Au produced during particle dissolution. Genome-wide analysis demonstrated that these isolates also possessed various genes that could provide cellular defence enabling survival under heavy-metal stressed condition by mediating the toxicity of heavy metals through active efflux/reduction. Diverse metal-resistant genes or genes clusters (cop, cus, czc, znt and ars) were detected, which could confer resistance to soluble Au. Comparative genome analysis revealed that the majority of detected heavy-metal resistant genes were similar (i.e. orthologous) to those genes of Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34. The detection of heavy-metal resistance, nutrient cycling and biofilm formation genes (pgaABCD, bsmA and hmpS) may have indirect yet important roles when dealing with soluble Au during particle dissolution. In conclusion, the physiological and genomic results suggest that bacteria living on gold particles would likely use various genes to ensure survival during Au-biogeochemical cycling.
AB - A bacterial consortium was enriched from gold particles that 'experienced' ca. 80 years of biotransformation within waste-rock piles (Australia). This bacterial consortium was exposed to 10 μM AuCl3 to obtain Au-tolerant bacteria. From these isolates, Serratia sp. and Stenotrophomonas sp. were the most Au-tolerant and reduced soluble Au as pure gold nanoparticles, indicating that passive mineralisation is a mechanism for mediating the toxic effect of soluble Au produced during particle dissolution. Genome-wide analysis demonstrated that these isolates also possessed various genes that could provide cellular defence enabling survival under heavy-metal stressed condition by mediating the toxicity of heavy metals through active efflux/reduction. Diverse metal-resistant genes or genes clusters (cop, cus, czc, znt and ars) were detected, which could confer resistance to soluble Au. Comparative genome analysis revealed that the majority of detected heavy-metal resistant genes were similar (i.e. orthologous) to those genes of Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34. The detection of heavy-metal resistance, nutrient cycling and biofilm formation genes (pgaABCD, bsmA and hmpS) may have indirect yet important roles when dealing with soluble Au during particle dissolution. In conclusion, the physiological and genomic results suggest that bacteria living on gold particles would likely use various genes to ensure survival during Au-biogeochemical cycling.
KW - Au-tolerant bacteria
KW - Gold biogeochemical cycling
KW - Gold biogeochemistry
KW - Gold particles
KW - Heavy-metal resistance
KW - Serratia
KW - Stenotrophomonas
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086748070&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/FEMSEC/FIAA111
DO - 10.1093/FEMSEC/FIAA111
M3 - Article
C2 - 32495831
AN - SCOPUS:85086748070
SN - 0168-6496
VL - 96
JO - FEMS Microbiology Ecology
JF - FEMS Microbiology Ecology
IS - 7
M1 - FIAA111
ER -