RT Journal Article
T1 Characterization of a promiscuous cadmium and arsenic resistance mechanism in Thermus thermophilus HB27 and potential application of a novel bioreporter system
A1 Antonucci, Immacolata
A1 Gallo, Giovanni
A1 Limauro, Danila
A1 Contursi, Patrizia
A1 Ribeiro, Ana Luisa
A1 Blesa Esteban, Alba Mercedes
A1 Berenguer, José
A1 Bartolucci, Simonetta
A1 Fiorentino, Gabriella
A2 BioMed Central, 
AB Background: The characterization of the molecular determinants of metal resistance has potential biotechnological application in biosensing and bioremediation. In this context, the bacterium Thermus thermophilus HB27 is a metal tolerant thermophile containing a set of genes involved in arsenic resistance which, diferently from other microbes, are not organized into a single operon. They encode the proteins: arsenate reductase, TtArsC, arsenic efux membrane transporter, TtArsX, and transcriptional repressor, TtSmtB.Results: In this work we show that the arsenic efux protein TtArsX and the arsenic responsive transcriptional repressor TtSmtB are required to provide resistance to cadmium. We analyzed the sensitivity to Cd(II) of mutants lacking TtArsX, fnding that they are more sensitive to this metal than the wild type strain. In addition, using promoter probe reporter plasmids, we show that the transcription of TtarsX is also stimulated by the presence of Cd(II) in a TtSmtBdependent way. Actually, a regulatory circuit composed of TtSmtB and a reporter gene expressed from the TtarsX promoter responds to variation in Cd(II), As(III) and As(V) concentrations.Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that the system composed by TtSmtB and TtArsX is responsible for both the arsenic and cadmium resistance in T. thermophilus. The data also support the use of T. thermophilus as a suitable chassis for the design and development of As-Cd biosensors.
PB BioMed Central
YR 2018
FD 2018-12-13
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/95943
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/95943
LA eng
NO Antonucci I, Gallo G, Limauro D, Contursi P, Ribeiro AL, Blesa A, et al. Characterization of a promiscuous cadmium and arsenic resistance mechanism in Thermus thermophilus HB27 and potential application of a novel bioreporter system. Microb Cell Fact 2018;17:78. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12934-018-0918-7.
NO University of Napoli Federico II
DS Docta Complutense
RD 10 abr 2025