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Isolation and Identification of Arsenic-Resistant Extremophilic Bacteria from the Crater-Lake Volcano “El Chichon”, Mexico

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Abstract

The crater lake at “El Chichón” volcano is an extreme acid-thermal environment with high concentrations of heavy metals. In this study, two bacterial strains with the ability to resist high concentrations of arsenic (As) were isolated from water samples from the crater lake. Staphylococcus ARSC1-P and Stenotrophomonas ARSC2-V isolates were identified by use of the 16S rDNA gene. Staphylococcus ARSC1-P was able to grow in 400 mM of arsenate [As(V)] under oxic and anoxic conditions. The IC50 values were 36 and 382 mM for oxic and anoxic conditions, respectively. For its part, Stenotrophomonas ARSC2-V showed IC50 values of 110 mM and 2.15 for As(V) and arsenite [As(III)], respectively. Arsenic accumulated intracellularly in both species [11–25 nmol As × mg cellular prot−1 in cells cultured in 50 mM As(V)]. The present study shows evidence of microbes that can potentially be a resource for the bio-treatment of arsenic in contaminated sites, which highlights the importance of the “El Chichón” volcano as a source of bacterial strains that are adaptable to extreme conditions.

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Acknowledgements

Authors thank to Dr. Josef Galthier Roblero Lucchetti for his comments regarding grammar and structure of this manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by CONACyT grant CB-253281(VM-RV), and Project No. 14277.22-P from the ‘Tecnológico Nacional de Mexico’ funds (TecNM, México). We would like to thank CONACyT for the doctoral fellowship assigned to C. I. Ovando-Ovando (No. 766260).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tecnologico Nacional de México, Instituto Tecnológico de Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, México

    Cesar Ivan Ovando-Ovando, Reiner Rincón-Rosales & Víctor Manuel Ruíz-Valdiviezo

  2. Departamento de Bioquímica, Instituto Nacional de Cardiología Ignacio Chávez, Mexico City, México

    Cesar Ivan Ovando-Ovando, R. Daniela Feregrino-Mondragón & Ricardo Jasso-Chávez

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  1. Cesar Ivan Ovando-Ovando
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  2. R. Daniela Feregrino-Mondragón
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  4. Ricardo Jasso-Chávez
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  5. Víctor Manuel Ruíz-Valdiviezo
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Contributions

“All authors contributed to the study conception and design, as well as to analyzing all data. Material preparation and developed experiments were performed by CIO-O and RD F-M Collection of data was carried out by RJ-C, VMR-V, and CIO-O, who were also in charge of writing the first draft. The last version was composed and reviewed by CIO-O, RDF-M, RR-R, RJ-C and VMR-V. Biological material collection was performed by CIO-O and VMR-V. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read, discussed, and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ricardo Jasso-Chávez or Víctor Manuel Ruíz-Valdiviezo.

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Ovando-Ovando, C.I., Feregrino-Mondragón, R.D., Rincón-Rosales, R. et al. Isolation and Identification of Arsenic-Resistant Extremophilic Bacteria from the Crater-Lake Volcano “El Chichon”, Mexico. Curr Microbiol 80, 257 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-023-03327-8

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