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Evidence of mercury trapping in biofilm-EPS and mer operon-based volatilization of inorganic mercury in a marine bacterium Bacillus cereus BW-201B

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Abstract

Biofilm-forming mercury-resistant marine bacterium Bacillus cereus BW-201B has been explored to evident that the bacterial biofilm-EPS (exopolymers) trap inorganic mercury but subsequently release EPS-bound mercury for induction of mer operon-mediated volatilization of inorganic mercury. The isolate was able to tolerate 50 ppm of mercury and forms biofilm in presence of mercury. mer operon-mediated volatilization was confirmed, and –SH was found to be the key functional group of bacterial EPS responsible for mercury binding. Biofilm-EPS-bound mercury was found to be internalized to the bacterial system as confirmed by reversible conformational change of –SH group and increased expression level of merA gene in a timescale experiment. Biofilm-EPS trapped Hg after 24 h of incubation, and by 96 h, the volatilization process reaches to its optimum confirming the internalization of EPS-bound mercury to the bacterial cells. Biofilm disintegration at the same time corroborates the results.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the authorities of NIT, Rourkela, for providing facilities. S.D. thanks the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India for a research Grant (No. BT/PR7480/BCE/8/945/2012).

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    1. Laboratory of Environmental Microbiology and Ecology (LEnME), Department of Life Science, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha, 769 008, India

      Hirak R. Dash, Subham Basu & Surajit Das

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    2. Subham Basu
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    Correspondence to Surajit Das.

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    Communicated by Shuang-Jiang Liu.

    Hirak R. Dash and Subham Basu have contributed equally to this work.

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    Dash, H.R., Basu, S. & Das, S. Evidence of mercury trapping in biofilm-EPS and mer operon-based volatilization of inorganic mercury in a marine bacterium Bacillus cereus BW-201B. Arch Microbiol 199, 445–455 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-016-1317-2

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