Abstract
ORGANISMS isolated from environments polluted by heavy metals are often tolerant of those metals1–5. Tolerance is usually accompanied by metal uptake equal to or greater than that of non-tolerant organisms2,6–10; the accumulated metals seem to be chemically detoxified and/or physically sequestered to render them inactive2,6,7,11–13. Because heavy metal tolerant algae10, plants2, yeast7 and invertebrates8,10 have been found not to restrict metal uptake, metal exclusion has been considered a rare mechanism of tolerance6. I report here, however, that a copper-tolerant strain of the common unicellular green alga Chlorella vulgaris excludes copper.
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FOSTER, P. Copper exclusion as a mechanism of heavy metal tolerance in a green alga. Nature 269, 322–323 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1038/269322a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/269322a0
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