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Microbial availability of mercury: effective detection and organic ligand effect using a whole-cell bioluminescent bioreporter

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Abstract

A luxCDABE-based genetically engineered bacterial bioreporter (Escherichia coli ARL1) was used to detect bioavailable ionic mercury (Hg(II)) and investigate the effects of humic acids and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) on the bioavailability of mercury in E. c oli. Results showed that the E. c oli ARL1 bioreporter was sensitive to mercury, with a detection limit of Hg(II) of 0.5 µg/L and a linear dose/response relationship up to 2000 µg Hg(II)/L. Humic acids and EDTA decreased the Hg(II)-induced bioluminescent response of strain ARL1, suggesting that the two organic ligands reduced the bioavailability of Hg(II) via complexation with Hg(II). Compared with traditional chemical methods, the use of E. c oli ARL1 is a cost-effective, rapid, and reliable approach for measuring aqueous mercury at very low concentrations and thus has potential for applications in field in situ monitoring.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 41101294), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (BK2010572), Jiangsu Government Scholarship for Overseas Studies, and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDB14020204). The University of Tennessee’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology and the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment also provided financial support for the experiments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Agricultural Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Xianghua Xu

  2. The Center for Environmental Biotechnology, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Xianghua Xu, Kathryn Oliff, Tingting Xu, Steven Ripp & Gary Sayler

  3. Key Laboratory of Pollution Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China

    Jie Zhuang

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  1. Xianghua Xu
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Correspondence to Jie Zhuang.

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Xu, X., Oliff, K., Xu, T. et al. Microbial availability of mercury: effective detection and organic ligand effect using a whole-cell bioluminescent bioreporter. Ecotoxicology 24, 2200–2206 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-015-1553-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-015-1553-2

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