In addition, the MICs of As (III), Cu (II) and Cd (II) in wild type C. testosteroni

S44 were 20 mM, 4 mM and 0.5 mM, respectively. In contrast, the MICs of As (III), Cu (II) selleck and Cd (II) in mutants iscR-280 and iscR-327 decreased to 10 mM, 2 mM and 0.1 mM, respectively. Those results indicated that IscR was involved in conferring resistance to a number of transition, heavy metals and metalloids in C. testosteroni S44. Figure 8 Resistance of C. testosteroni S44 and iscR mutants to As(III), Cu(II) and Cd(II). All strains were inoculated into 5 ml liquid LB medium supplemented with different concentrations of (A) As(III), (B) Cu(II) and (C) Cd(II), respectively. The OD value was determined after 24 h incubation. Different letters above bars at each metal CRT0066101 price concentration indicate significant differences between wild type S44, mutants iscR-280, iscR-327 and iscR-513 (P < 0.05). Discussion C. testosteroni S44 reduced soluble Se(IV) into insoluble and thus non-toxic SeNPs outside of cells under aerobic condition as indicated by SEM/TEM-EDX and EDS Mapping analyses. It should thus be possible to synthesize SeNPs by imitating the biological process in industrial nanomaterial manufacturing [30]. Diseases caused by high

content of Se in soils have been confirmed for the Chinese provinces Hubei and Shaanxi and Indian Punjab [1,4]. In general, the variation of Se level in humans and animals are correlated to both Se excess and deficiency through the food chain [20]. Plants took up less water-soluble Se oxyanions from soil when bacteria reduced Se(IV) to organic Se and element selenium [31]. High levels of Se are commonly associated with concurrent contamination by other heavy and/or transition metals. Therefore, C. testosteroni S44 could be very useful for bioremediation of heavy metal(loid) polluted soils because it has adapted to a metal(loid)-contaminated Phosphatidylethanolamine N-methyltransferase environment. Considering the fact that only a partial reduction of Se(IV) to Se(0) could be achieved (Figure 2), it would be better in Se bioremediation if C. testosteroni S44 was applied to the contaminated site together with other more efficient

Se(IV)-reducing bacteria. In some bacterial strains, elemental SeNPs were PI3K inhibitor observed both inside and outside of cells [12,21,32,33] whereas in other bacteria nanoparticles were only observed outside of cells [20]. We did not detect Se(IV) by HPLC-HG-AFS in cellular fractions (data not shown) although elemental Se less than 0.1 μM meets the demand of bacteria for synthesis of selenocysteine [34]. We could not observe SeNPs produced inside of cells at log phase and stationary phase by TEM, EDX and EDS Elemental Mapping (Figures 3, 4 and Additional file 1: Figure S1) although SeNPs were easily observed by TEM in many bacterial cells [12,21,32]. In contrast, we only observed a large number of SeNPs appearing outside of cells (Figure 1).