Functional profiling of mercuric reductase (mer A) genes in biofilm communities of a technical scale biocatalyzer.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Bacterial mercury resistance is based on enzymatic reduction of ionic mercury to elemental mercury and has recently been demonstrated to be applicable for industrial wastewater clean-up. The long-term monitoring of such biocatalyser systems requires a cultivation independent functional community profiling method targeting the key enzyme of the process, the merA gene coding for the mercuric reductase. We report on the development of a profiling method for merA and its application to monitor changes in the functional diversity of the biofilm community of a technical scale biocatalyzer over 8 months of on-site operation.

Results

Based on an alignment of 30 merA sequences from Gram negative bacteria, conserved primers were designed for amplification of merA fragments

SUBMITTER: Felske AD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC270059 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature