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Environ Health Perspect

Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois

Abstract

Bacterial plasmids contain specific genes for resistances to toxic heavy metal ions including Ag⁺, AsO₂^-, AsO₄^3-, Cd²⁺, Co²⁺, CrO₄^2-, Cu²⁺, Hg²⁺, Ni²⁺, Pb²⁺, Sb³⁺, and Zn²⁺. Recent progress with plasmid copper-resistance systems in Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas syringae show a system of four gene products, an inner membrane protein (PcoD) , an outer membrane protein (PcoB) , and two periplasmic Cu²⁺-binding proteins (PcoA and PcoC) . Synthesis of this system is governed by two regulatory proteins (the membrane sensor PcoS and the soluble responder PcoR, probably a DNA-binding protein) , homologous to other bacterial two-component regulatory systems. Chromosomally encoded Cu²⁺ P-type ATPases have recently been recognized in Enterococcus hirae and these are closely homologous to the bacterial cadmium efflux ATPase and the human copper-deficiency disease Menkes gene product. The Cd²⁺-efflux ATPase of gram-positive bacteria is a large P-type ATPase, homologous to the muscle Ca²⁺ ATPase and the Na⁺/K⁺ ATPases of animals. The arsenic-resistance system of gram-negative bacteria functions as an oxyanion efflux ATPase for arsenite and presumably antimonite. However, the structure of the arsenic ATPase is fundamentally different from that of P-type ATPases. The absence of the arsA gene (for the ATPase subunit) in gram-positive bacteria raises questions of energy-coupling for arsenite efflux. The ArsC protein product of the arsenic-resistance operons of both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria is an intracellular enzyme that reduces arsenate [As(V) ] to arsenite [As(III) ], the substrate for the transport pump. Newly studied cation efflux systems for Cd²⁺, Zn²⁺, and Co²⁺ (Czc) or Co²⁺ and Ni²⁺ resistance (Cnr) lack ATPase motifs in their predicted polypeptide sequences. Therefore, not all plasmid-resistance systems that function through toxic ion efflux are ATPases. The first well-defined bacterial metallothionein was found in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus. Bacterial metallothionein is encoded by the smtA gene and contains 56 amino acids, including nine cysteine residues (fewer than animal metallothioneins) . The synthesis of Synechococcus metallothionein is regulated by a repressor protein, the product of the adjacent but separately transcribed smtB gene. Regulation of metallothionein synthesis occurs at different levels: quickly by derepression of repressor activity, or over a longer time by deletion of the repressor gene at fixed positions and by amplification of the metallothionein DNA region leading to multiple copies of the gene. -- Environ Health Perspect 102(Suppl 3) :107-113 (1994) .

Key words: arsenic, bacterial plasmids, cadmium, copper, mercury, metallothionein, metal resistances