Structural biology of the sequestration and transport of heavy metal toxins: NMR structure determination of proteins containing the -Cys-X-Y-Cys-metal binding motifs. 1997 annual progress report
'There are enormous amounts of heavy metals in the environment, much of it in the form of organometallic compounds resulting from various types of industrial and military waste. Nearly all of these metals and compounds are highly toxic to biological organisms including humans. However, some bacteria thrive in the presence of high concentrations of heavy metal toxins because they possess efficient mechanisms for the detoxification of these metals and compounds. Heavy metals appear to be universally toxic because of their non-selective chemistry, for example Hg(II) reacts with essentially all exposed sulfhydryl groups on proteins, thus, it may seem surprising that any organism at all can survive these chemical insults much less those that grow in a toxic milieu. However, the prebiotic environment was undoubtedly heavily polluted with heavy metals from geological processes, and the most primitive organisms simply had to evolve mechanisms for dealing with them if they were going to be able to utilize Cys, His, and the other amino acids that contribute to metal binding sites in their proteins. Genes associated with bacterial resistance to Ag, AsO{sub 2}, AsO{sub 4}, Bi, Cd, Co, CrO{sub 4}, Cu, Hg, iNi, TeO{sub 3}, TI, Pb, Zn, and other metals of environmental concern have been described (Silver, 1992; Silver and Walderhaug, 1995).'
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Environmental Management (EM), Office of Science and Risk Policy
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG07-96ER62314
- OSTI ID:
- 13583
- Report Number(s):
- EMSP-54856-97; ON: DE00013583
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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