Volatile arsenic species released from Escherichia coli expressing the AsIII S-adenosylmethionine methyltransferase gene.

ABSTRACT: Biological systems, ranging from bacteria and fungi to humans, can methylate arsenic. Recent studies have suggested that the AsIII S-adenosylmethionine methyltransferase (arsM) gene in bacteria was responsible for the removal of arsenic as the volatile arsines from the bacteria. However, there has been no direct measure of the arsines released from bacteria cultures. We describe here an integrated system incorporating the bacterial incubation and volatile arsenic species analysis, and we demonstrate its application to the identification of the volatile arsines produced in bacterial cultures. The headspace of the bacterial cultures was purged with helium, and the volatile arsenic species were trapped in a chromatographic column immersed in liquid nitrogen. The cryogenically trapped arsines

SUBMITTER: Yuan C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4591914 | biostudies-literature | 2008 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature