Copper bioaccumulation by the actinobacterium Amycolatopsis sp. AB0

ALBARRACÍN, V.H.,; WINIK, B.; KOTHE, E.; AMOROSO M. J.; ABATE, C. M.

JOURNAL OF BASIC MICROBIOLOGY

WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA

Lugar: Weinheim; Año: 2008 vol. 48 p. 323 - 330

0233-111X

Amycolatopsis sp. AB0, a copper resistant actinobacterium isolated from polluted sediments, has shown high copper specific biopsortion ability (25 mg g 1). Two approaches were used to confirm metal accumulation in growing cells of Amycolatopsis sp. AB0; we performed subcellular fractioning assays which showed that the retained copper was associated with theextra-cellular fraction (exopolymer, 40%), but mainly within the cells. Intracellulardistribution of copper was: 86% in the cytosolic fraction, 11% at the cell wall and 3%associated with the ribosome/membrane fraction. Its copper bioaccumulation ability wascorroborated by using silver enhanced staining of copper with the Timm s reagent technique,which has not been used to detect metal deposits in bacteria before. In addition, weconstructed specific oligonucleotides for targeting genes coding for copper P-Type ATPases thatcould be involved in the copper uptake ability of this strain. A 607 bp DNA fragment wasamplified and sequenced from Amycolatopsis sp AB0. BLAST search analysis showed 71% protein homology of the deduced sequence with a putative cation-transporting ATPase of Nocardia farcinica and 65% with a copper translocating ATPase of Mycobacterium flavescens. To our knowledge this is the first report of the presence of copper P-type ATPase genes in the Amycolatopsis genus.