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Unusual rise in mercury-resistant bacteria in coastal environs

DRS at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography

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Title Unusual rise in mercury-resistant bacteria in coastal environs
 
Creator Ramaiah, N.
De, J.
 
Subject microorganisms
resistance mechanism
control resistence
mercury
nutrient (minerals)
agar
growth
pollution effects
Bacteria
 
Description A sharp rise in mercury-resistant bacteria (MRB) capable of tolerating very high concentration of Hg was observed over the last 3-4 years in the coastal environs of India. While none or negligible colony-forming units (CFU) of bacteria were counted on seawater nutrient agar with 0.5 ppm ( 2.5 mM) Hg (II) as HgCl2 until 1997, from 13 to over 75% of the CFU grew on 20 times higher, 50 mM, Hg concentrations from almost every recently examined marine sample. Although exceptionally high counts of MRB (96% of CFU) were recorded from samples collected from the polluted zones off Mumbai, the MRB capable of growth on seawater nutrient agar with 50 mM Hg were quite abundant in most samples collected from many locations with few or no pollution effects. We noticed for the first time the occurrence of aerobic heterotrophic bacterial isolates capable of growth with 250 mM Hg. Such MRB grew with higher concentrations of many other toxic xenobiotics than the Hg sensitive ones. Based on the unusually high populations of viable MRB and some simple experiments, it is proposed that many marine bacterial species are selected, possibly through acquisition of plasmids and/or transposable elements and modifying Hg, whose concentration, according to recent studies, is on the rise in marine habitats
 
Date 2008-07-18T05:07:21Z
2008-07-18T05:07:21Z
2003
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Microbial Ecology, Vol.45; 444-454p.
http://drs.nio.org/drs/handle/2264/1215
 
Language en
 
Rights Copyright [2003]. It is tried to respect the rights of the copyright holders to the best of the knowledge. If it is brought to our notice that the rights are violated then the item would be withdrawn.
 
Publisher Springer