Abstract
The Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, TN, which manufactured nuclear weapons during World War II and the Cold War, contaminated East Fork Poplar Creek with heavy metals. The multimetal resistant bacterial strain, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia Oak Ridge strain O2 (S. maltophilia O2), was isolated from East Fork Poplar Creek. Sequence analysis of 16s rDNA suggested that our working strain of S. maltophilia O2 was a strain of Enterobacter. Phylogenetic tree analysis and biochemical tests confirmed that it belonged to an Enterobacter species. This new strain was named Enterobacter sp. YSU. Using a modified R3A growth medium, R3A-Tris, the Hg(II), Cd(II), Zn(II), Cu(II), Au(III), Cr(VI), Ag(I), As(III), and Se(IV) MICs for a confirmed strain of S. maltophilia O2 were 0.24, 0.33, 5, 5, 0.25, 7, 0.03, 14, and 40 mM, respectively, compared to 0.07, 0.24, 0.8, 3, 0.05, 0.4, 0.08, 14, and 40 mM, respectively, for Enterobacter sp. YSU. Although S. maltophilia O2 was generally more metal resistant than Enterobacter sp. YSU, in comparison to Escherichia coli strain HB101, Enterobacter sp. YSU was resistant to Hg(II), Cd(II), Zn(II), Au(III), Ag(I), As(III), and Se(IV). By studying metal resistances in these two strains, it may be possible to understand what makes one microorganism more metal resistant than another microorganism. This work also provided benchmark MICs that can be used to evaluate the metal resistance properties of other bacterial isolates from East Fork Poplar Creek and other metal contaminated sites.
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Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the National Science Foundation through Grant numbers 0542178 and 0620240 and the University Research Council at the Youngstown State University (YSU) School of Graduate Studies. We thank Julio “Ed” Budde from the Department of Biological Sciences at YSU for resolving our sequencing reactions, Thomas Schmidt from Michigan State University (MSU) and Xiang Jia Min from YSU for help with 16s rDNA sequencing and analysis, Jay Kerns from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at YSU for help with calculating the standard MIC errors and Anne Summers from the University of Georgia, Julius Jackson from Michigan State University, Xiang Jia Min and Chester Cooper, Jr from YSU for critiquing the manuscript.
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Holmes, A., Vinayak, A., Benton, C. et al. Comparison of Two Multimetal Resistant Bacterial Strains: Enterobacter sp. YSU and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia ORO2. Curr Microbiol 59, 526–531 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-009-9471-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-009-9471-2