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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, August 2004, p. 4582-4587, Vol. 70, No. 8
0099-2240/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.70.8.4582-4587.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Enhanced Arsenic Accumulation in Engineered Bacterial Cells Expressing ArsR

Jan Kostal,1 Rosanna Yang,1 Cindy H. Wu,1,2 Ashok Mulchandani,1 and Wilfred Chen1*

Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering,1 Environmental Toxicology Program, University of California, Riverside, California 925212

Received 14 April 2004/ Accepted 19 April 2004

The metalloregulatory protein ArsR, which offers high affinity and selectivity toward arsenite, was overexpressed in Escherichia coli in an attempt to increase the bioaccumulation of arsenic. Overproduction of ArsR resulted in elevated levels of arsenite bioaccumulation but also a severe reduction in cell growth. Incorporation of an elastin-like polypeptide as the fusion partner to ArsR (ELP153AR) improved cell growth by twofold without compromising the ability to accumulate arsenite. Resting cells overexpressing ELP153AR accumulated 5- and 60-fold-higher levels of arsenate and arsenite than control cells without ArsR overexpression. Conversely, no significant improvement in Cd2+ or Zn2+ accumulation was observed, validating the specificity of ArsR. The high affinity of ArsR allowed 100% removal of 50 ppb of arsenite from contaminated water with these engineered cells, providing a technology useful to comply with the newly approved U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limit of 10 ppb. These results open up the possibility of using cells overexpressing ArsR as an inexpensive, high-affinity ligand for arsenic removal from contaminated drinking and ground water.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521. Phone: (909) 787-2473. Fax: (909) 787-5696. E-mail: Wilfred{at}engr.ucr.edu.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, August 2004, p. 4582-4587, Vol. 70, No. 8
0099-2240/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.70.8.4582-4587.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Singh, S., Mulchandani, A., Chen, W. (2008). Highly Selective and Rapid Arsenic Removal by Metabolically Engineered Escherichia coli Cells Expressing Fucus vesiculosus Metallothionein. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 74: 2924-2927 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


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