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Assessing nickel tolerance of bacteria isolated from serpentine soils

  • Environmental Microbiology - Research Paper
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Abstract

Serpentine soils present unique characteristics such as a low Ca/Mg ratio, low concentration of nutrients, and a high concentration of heavy metals, especially nickel. Soil bacterial isolates from an ultramafic complex located in the tropical savanna known as the Brazilian Cerrado were studied. Nickel-tolerant bacteria were obtained, and their ability to remove nickel from a culture medium was assessed. Bacterial isolates presented higher tolerance to nickel salts than previously reported for bacteria obtained from serpentine environments in other regions of the world. In addition, the quantification of nickel in cell pellets indicated that at least four isolates may adsorb soluble forms of nickel. It is expected that information gathered in this study will support future efforts to exploit serpentine soil bacteria for biotechnological processes involving nickel decontamination from environmental samples.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Anglo American and their team at the Barro Alto plant for their support.

Funding

This work was supported by FAP-DF, the Federal District Research Foundation (Grant 193.000.197/2014); CNPq, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, Brazil (Grant 830009/2003-5); EMBRAPA Macroprograma 3 (Grant 03.09.06.016.00.00); and CAPES, Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel, Brazil (Grant 8881.062152/2014-1). Publication number 6641 of The Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW).

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Author notes

  1. Flávio Silva Costa

    Present address: Institute of Microbiology, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Neugasse 25, 07743, Jena, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate Program in Genomic Sciences and Biotechnology, Universidade Católica de Brasília, SGAN 916, Avenida W5, Brasilia, 70790-160, Brazil

    Flávio Silva Costa, Maria Wanna Figueiredo Sena Macedo, Ana Carolina Moreira Araújo, Cassimira Albuquerque Rodrigues & Cristine Chaves Barreto

  2. Department of Microbial Ecology, Nederlands Instituut vor Ecologie (NIOO-KNAW), Droevendaalsesteeg 10, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Eiko Eurya Kuramae

  3. Department of Chemistry, Universidade Católica de Brasília, QS 07, Lote 01, EPCT, Brasilia, 71966-700, Brazil

    Silvia Keli de Barros Alcanfor

  4. Embrapa Cerrados, BR 020, Km 18, PO Box 08223, Brasilia, 73310-970, Brazil

    Marco Pessoa-Filho

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  1. Flávio Silva Costa
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Correspondence to Cristine Chaves Barreto.

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Figure S1

Schematic representation of the experimental design. (PNG 122 kb)

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Figure S2

Phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences of thirteen elected isolates that were evaluated for nickel tolerance. The evolutionary history was inferred using the Maximum-likelihood method. The percentage of replicate trees in which the associated taxa clustered together in the bootstrap test (1000 replicates) are shown next to the branches. The tree is drawn to scale, with branch lengths in the same units as those of the evolutionary distances used to infer the phylogenetic tree. (PDF 74 kb)

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Costa, F.S., Macedo, M.W.F.S., Araújo, A.C.M. et al. Assessing nickel tolerance of bacteria isolated from serpentine soils. Braz J Microbiol 50, 705–713 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42770-019-00111-4

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