Characterization of a promiscuous cadmium and arsenic resistance mechanism in Thermus thermophilus HB27 and potential application of a novel bioreporter system.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The characterization of the molecular determinants of metal resistance has potential biotechnological application in biosensing and bioremediation. In this context, the bacterium Thermus thermophilus HB27 is a metal tolerant thermophile containing a set of genes involved in arsenic resistance which, differently from other microbes, are not organized into a single operon. They encode the proteins: arsenate reductase, TtArsC, arsenic efflux membrane transporter, TtArsX, and transcriptional repressor, TtSmtB.

Results

In this work we show that the arsenic efflux protein TtArsX and the arsenic responsive transcriptional repressor TtSmtB are required to provide resistance to cadmium. We analyzed the sensitivity to Cd(II) of mutants lacking TtArsX, finding that they are

SUBMITTER: Antonucci I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5960188 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature