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A suite of recombinant luminescent bacterial strains for the quantification of bioavailable heavy metals and toxicity testing.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Recombinant whole-cell sensors have already proven useful in the assessment of the bioavailability of environmental pollutants like heavy metals and organic compounds. In this work 19 recombinant bacterial strains representing various Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas fluorescens) bacteria were constructed to express the luminescence encoding genes luxCDABE (from Photorhabdus luminescens) as a response to bioavailable heavy metals ("lights-on" metal sensors containing metal-response elements, 13 strains) or in a constitutive manner ("lights-off" constructs, 6 strains).

Results

The bioluminescence of all 13 "lights-on" metal sensor strains was expressed as a function of the sub-toxic metal concentrations enabling the quantitative determination of metals bioavailable for these strains. Five sensor strains, constructed for detecting copper and mercury, proved to be target metal specific, whereas eight other sensor strains were simultaneously induced by Cd2+, Hg2+, Zn2+and Pb2+. The lowest limits of determination of the "lights-on" sensor strains for the metals tested in this study were (microg l-1): 0.002 of CH3HgCl, 0.03 of HgCl2, 1.8 of CdCl2, 33 of Pb(NO3)2, 1626 of ZnSO4, 24 of CuSO4 and 340 of AgNO3. In general, the sensitivity of the "lights-on" sensor strains was mostly dependent on the metal-response element used while the selection of host bacterium played a relatively minor role. In contrast, toxicity of metals to the "lights-off" strains was only dependent on the bacterial host so that Gram-positive strains were remarkably more sensitive than Gram-negative ones.

Conclusion

The constructed battery of 19 recombinant luminescent bacterial strains exhibits several novel aspects as it contains i) metal sensor strains with similar metal-response elements in different host bacteria; ii) metal sensor strains with metal-response elements in different copies and iii) a "lights-off" construct (control) for every constructed recombinant metal sensor strain. To our knowledge, no Gram-positive metal sensor expressing a full bacterial bioluminescence cassette (luxCDABE) has been constructed previously.

SUBMITTER: Ivask A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2685376 | biostudies-literature | 2009 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A suite of recombinant luminescent bacterial strains for the quantification of bioavailable heavy metals and toxicity testing.

Ivask Angela A Rõlova Taisia T Kahru Anne A

BMC biotechnology 20090508

<h4>Background</h4>Recombinant whole-cell sensors have already proven useful in the assessment of the bioavailability of environmental pollutants like heavy metals and organic compounds. In this work 19 recombinant bacterial strains representing various Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas fluorescens) bacteria were constructed to express the luminescence encoding genes luxCDABE (from Photorhabdus luminescens) as a response ...[more]

PMID: 19426479

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Project description:BackgroundHumans are exposed to tens of thousands of chemical substances that need to be assessed for their potential toxicity. Acute systemic toxicity testing serves as the basis for regulatory hazard classification, labeling, and risk management. However, it is cost- and time-prohibitive to evaluate all new and existing chemicals using traditional rodent acute toxicity tests. In silico models built using existing data facilitate rapid acute toxicity predictions without using animals.ObjectivesThe U.S. Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) Acute Toxicity Workgroup organized an international collaboration to develop in silico models for predicting acute oral toxicity based on five different end points: Lethal Dose 50 (LD50 value, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hazard (four) categories, Globally Harmonized System for Classification and Labeling hazard (five) categories, very toxic chemicals [LD50 (LD50≤50mg/kg)], and nontoxic chemicals (LD50>2,000mg/kg).MethodsAn acute oral toxicity data inventory for 11,992 chemicals was compiled, split into training and evaluation sets, and made available to 35 participating international research groups that submitted a total of 139 predictive models. Predictions that fell within the applicability domains of the submitted models were evaluated using external validation sets. These were then combined into consensus models to leverage strengths of individual approaches.ResultsThe resulting consensus predictions, which leverage the collective strengths of each individual model, form the Collaborative Acute Toxicity Modeling Suite (CATMoS). CATMoS demonstrated high performance in terms of accuracy and robustness when compared with in vivo results.DiscussionCATMoS is being evaluated by regulatory agencies for its utility and applicability as a potential replacement for in vivo rat acute oral toxicity studies. CATMoS predictions for more than 800,000 chemicals have been made available via the National Toxicology Program's Integrated Chemical Environment tools and data sets (ice.ntp.niehs.nih.gov). The models are also implemented in a free, standalone, open-source tool, OPERA, which allows predictions of new and untested chemicals to be made. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP8495.

Dataset Information

A suite of recombinant luminescent bacterial strains for the quantification of bioavailable heavy metals and toxicity testing.

Background

Results

Conclusion

Publications

A suite of recombinant luminescent bacterial strains for the quantification of bioavailable heavy metals and toxicity testing.

Similar Datasets

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