Publication Date:
2013-02-09
Description:
Methylmercury is a potent neurotoxin produced in natural environments from inorganic mercury by anaerobic bacteria. However, until now the genes and proteins involved have remained unidentified. Here, we report a two-gene cluster, hgcA and hgcB, required for mercury methylation by Desulfovibrio desulfuricans ND132 and Geobacter sulfurreducens PCA. In either bacterium, deletion of hgcA, hgcB, or both genes abolishes mercury methylation. The genes encode a putative corrinoid protein, HgcA, and a 2[4Fe-4S] ferredoxin, HgcB, consistent with roles as a methyl carrier and an electron donor required for corrinoid cofactor reduction, respectively. Among bacteria and archaea with sequenced genomes, gene orthologs are present in confirmed methylators but absent in nonmethylators, suggesting a common mercury methylation pathway in all methylating bacteria and archaea sequenced to date.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Parks, Jerry M -- Johs, Alexander -- Podar, Mircea -- Bridou, Romain -- Hurt, Richard A Jr -- Smith, Steven D -- Tomanicek, Stephen J -- Qian, Yun -- Brown, Steven D -- Brandt, Craig C -- Palumbo, Anthony V -- Smith, Jeremy C -- Wall, Judy D -- Elias, Dwayne A -- Liang, Liyuan -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2013 Mar 15;339(6125):1332-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1230667. Epub 2013 Feb 7.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23393089" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Amino Acid Sequence
;
Bacterial Proteins/*genetics
;
Corrinoids/genetics
;
Desulfovibrio desulfuricans/*genetics/metabolism
;
Environmental Pollutants/*metabolism
;
Ferredoxins/genetics
;
Gene Deletion
;
Geobacter/*genetics/metabolism
;
Mercury/*metabolism
;
Methylation
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
*Multigene Family
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
