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Definition
Tellurium and its oxyanions are highly toxic. Bacteria have developed resistance mechanisms to overcome the tellurium and tellurite toxic effects. These include reduction to elemental state, production of volatile species via methylation, and efflux from the cell by membrane proteins.
Introduction
Tellurium belongs to the 16th column of the Periodic Table of elements which are called chalcogens. Tellurium can be found in trace quantities (Avazeri et al. 1997) within the environment. Tellurium exists as elemental tellurium (Te0), inorganic telluride (Te2−), the oxyanion forms tellurite (TeO 2−3 ), and tellurate (TeO 2−4 ) and organic dimethyl telluride (DMTe); TeO 2−3 and TeO 2−4 are the more common and soluble oxyanions compared to elemental tellurium. There are no reports that tellurium is an essential metal, but its toxicity to organisms is well studied. Tellurium is referred to as toxic metalloid with the oxyanion tellurite being highly...
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References
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Choudhury, H.G., Beis, K. (2013). Tellurite-Resistance Protein TehA from Escherichia coli . In: Kretsinger, R.H., Uversky, V.N., Permyakov, E.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Metalloproteins. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1533-6_462
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1533-6_462
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