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Heavy metal accumulation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells armed with metal binding hexapeptides targeted to the inner face of the plasma membrane

  • Applied genetics and molecular biotechnology
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Abstract

Accumulation of heavy metals without developing toxicity symptoms is a phenotype restricted to a small group of plants called hyperaccumulators, whose metal-related characteristics suggested the high potential in biotechnologies such as bioremediation and bioextraction. In an attempt to extrapolate the heavy metal hyperaccumulating phenotype to yeast, we obtained Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells armed with non-natural metal-binding hexapeptides targeted to the inner face of the plasma membrane, expected to sequester the metal ions once they penetrated the cell. We describe the construction of S. cerevisiae strains overexpressing metal-binding hexapeptides (MeBHxP) fused to the carboxy-terminus of a myristoylated green fluorescent protein (myrGFP). Three non-toxic myrGFP-MeBHxP (myrGFP-H6, myrGFP-C6, and myrGFP-(DE)3) were investigated against an array of heavy metals in terms of their effect on S. cerevisiae growth, heavy metal (hyper) accumulation, and capacity to remove heavy metal from contaminated environments.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the Romanian—EEA Research Program operated by the Ministry of National Education under the EEA Financial Mechanism 2009-2014 and Project Contract No 21 SEE/30.06.2014.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Chemistry, University of Bucharest, Sos. Panduri 90-92, Bucharest, Romania

    Lavinia Liliana Ruta, Ioana Nicolau & Ileana Cornelia Farcasanu

  2. Cell, Molecular Biology and Genomics Group, Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491, Trondheim, Norway

    Ralph Kissen & Atle M. Bones

  3. Faculty of Biology, University of Bucharest, Spl. Independentei 91-95, Bucharest, Romania

    Aurora Daniela Neagoe

  4. Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy, Spl. Independentei 296, Bucharest, Romania

    Andrei José Petrescu

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  1. Lavinia Liliana Ruta
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  2. Ralph Kissen
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  3. Ioana Nicolau
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  4. Aurora Daniela Neagoe
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  5. Andrei José Petrescu
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  7. Ileana Cornelia Farcasanu
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Correspondence to Ileana Cornelia Farcasanu.

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This study was funded by the EEA Financial Mechanism 2009–2014 (Contract No 21 SEE/30.06.2014).

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Ruta, L.L., Kissen, R., Nicolau, I. et al. Heavy metal accumulation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells armed with metal binding hexapeptides targeted to the inner face of the plasma membrane. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 101, 5749–5763 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-017-8335-0

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