Abstract
A stable community of bacteria that had unusually high tolerance of soluble silver was isolated from soil by chemostat enrichment. The community consisted of three bacteria: Pseudomonas maltophilia, Staphylococcus aureus and a coryneform organism. The pseudomonas was primarly responsible for the silver resistance. The tolerance of high silver concentrations, up to 100 mM Ag+, was greatly reduced when the community was grown in the absence of silver. Pseudomonas maltophilia comprised approximately 50% by numbers of the community when grown in chemostats in the presence or absence of Ag+ but large fluctuations occurred in population sizes of the other two bacteria; the S. aureus population was small (less than 1%) in the presence of Ag+ but comparised a third of the total numbers when Ag+ was omitted from the medium. Silver-resistant respiration of the silveradapted community was significant even when it was confronted with high concentrations of Ag+. In contrast the respiration of the coryneform organism and particularly S. aureus was highly sensitive to silver. The inhibition constants for silver-sensitive respiration were 0.78 mM and 0.04 mM for silver acclimatized and nonacclimatized communities respectively.
The community had great capacity for silver bioaccumulation. Maximum concentrations of over 300 mg silver per g dry weight of biomass were recorded at an accumulation rate of 21 mg Ag+ h-1 (g biomass)-1. The extent of silver removal from solution was a function of initial concentration of silver; at low external concentrations (ca. 1 mM) all the silver was rapidly removed from solution, at high concentrations (ca. 12 mM) 84% removal occurred in 15 h.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Allbright, L. J., Wentworth, J. W., Wilson, E. M.: Technique for measuring metallic salt effects upon the indigenous heterotrophic microflora of a natural water. Water Res. 6, 1589–1596 (1972)
Bull, A. T., Brown, C. M.: Continuous culture applications to microbial biochemistry. In: International review of biochemistry, vol. 21, Microbial Biochemistry, pp. 177–226 (J. R. Quayle, ed. Lancaster: MTP Press Ltd. 1979
Chakrabarty, A. M.: Plasmids in Pseudomonas. Ann. Rev. Genet. 10, 7–30 (1976)
Chakrabarty, A. M., Friello, D. A., Mylroie, J. R.: US Patent No. 3, 923, 597 (1975)
Dixon, M., Webb, E. C.: Enzymes (2nd Edn) London: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd. 1964
Foye, W. O.: Antimicrobial activities of mineral elements. In: Microorganisms and minerals, pp. 387–419 (E. D. Weinberg, ed.) New York, Basel: Marcel Dekker, Inc. 1977
Furukawa, K., Tonomura, K.: Metallic mercury-releasing enzyme in mercury-resistant Pseudomonas. Agric. Biol. Chem. 36, 217–226 (1972)
Hoffman, L. E., Hendrix, J. L.: Inhibition of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans by soluble silver. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 18, 1161–1165 (1976)
Horitsu, H., Takagi, M., Tomoyeda, M.: Isolation of a mercuric chloride-tolerant bacterium and uptake of mercury by the bacterium. Europ. J. Appl. Microbiol. 5, 279–290 (1978)
Iverson, W. P., Brinckman, F. E.: Microbiol metabolism of heavy metals. In: Water pollution microbiology, Vol. 2, pp. 201–232 (R. Mitchell, ed.) New York: Wiley 1978
Lowry, O. H., Rosebrough, N. J., Farr, A. L., Randall, R. J.: Protein measurement with the Folin phenol reagent. J. Biol. Chem. 193, 265–275 (1951)
Norris, P. R., Kelly, D. P.: Toxic metals in leaching systems. In: Metallurgical applications of bacterial leaching and related microbiological phenomena (L. E. Murr, A. E. Torma, J. A. Brierley, eds.), pp. 83–102. New York: Academic Press 1978
Senior, E., Bull, A. T., Slater, J. H.: Enzyme evolution in a microbial community growing on the herbicide Dalapon. Nature (Lond.) 236, 476–479 (1976)
Summers, A. O., Schottel, J., Clark, D., Silver, S.: Plasmid-borne Hg (II) and organo-mercurial resistance. In: Microbiology - 1974 (D. Schlesinger, ed.), pp. 219–226, Washington: American Society for Microbiology 1975
Veldkamp, H.: Enrichment cultures of prokaryotic organisms. In: Methods in microbiology, vol. 3A, pp. 305–326 (J. R. Norris, D. W. Ribbons, eds.) London: Academic Press 1970)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Charley, R.C., Bull, A.T. Bioaccumulation of silver by a multispecies community of bacteria. Arch. Microbiol. 123, 239–244 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00406656
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00406656