Abstract
Mercury (Hg) is a global pollutant of environmental and health concern; its methylated form, methylmercury (MeHg), is a potent neurotoxin. Sulfur-containing molecules play a role in MeHg production by microorganisms. While sulfides are considered to limit Hg methylation, sulfate and cysteine were shown to favor this process. However, these two forms can be endogenously converted by microorganisms into sulfide. Here, we explore the effect of sulfide (produced by the cell or supplied exogenously) on Hg methylation. For this purpose, Pseudodesulfovibrio hydrargyri BerOc1 was cultivated in non-sulfidogenic conditions with addition of cysteine and sulfide as well as in sulfidogenic conditions. We report that Hg methylation depends on sulfide concentration in the culture and the sulfides produced by cysteine degradation or sulfate reduction could affect the Hg methylation pattern. Hg methylation was independent of hgcA expression. Interestingly, MeHg production was maximal at 0.1–0.5 mM of sulfides. Besides, a strong positive correlation between MeHg in the extracellular medium and the increase of sulfide concentrations was observed, suggesting a facilitated MeHg export with sulfide and/or higher desorption from the cell. We suggest that sulfides (exogenous or endogenous) play a key role in controlling mercury methylation and should be considered when investigating the impact of Hg in natural environments.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Claire Gassie for her special assistance in flow cytometry analysis, qPCR and throughout this study.
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This work was supported by the Go-Beam project, funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, through the E2S-UPPA call Key Scientific challenges.
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S.B.: design of the work, acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data, writing original draft. M.M.: design of the work, data curation, review and editing. E.T.: data curation, methodology. B.K-H: review and editing. R.G.: design of the work, analysis, methodology, review and editing. M-P.I.: design of the work, funding acquisition, methodology, project administration, supervision, writing original draft, review and editing. M.G-U.: design of the work, analysis, methodology, supervision, writing original draft, review and editing.
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Supplementary file1 (PDF 1.05 MB) Additional details about experimental procedures, cell growth, experimental controls and, thermodynamic calculations are found in SI. Online Resource 1 is a schematic representation of the experimental key times. Online Resource 2 shows the growth curves of cultures conducted in this study. Online Resource 3 shows growth curves, Hg methylation potential and total recovered Hg measured in abiotic control (without cells), Online Resource 4 shows metacinnabar saturation indexes and Hg precipitated fraction depending on sulfide concentration calculated with Visual Minteq software and, Online Resource 5 shows initial partitioning of inorganic mercury (sampled at Ti). Online Resource Table 1 shows the raw data of Hg methylation assays and Online Resource Table 2 and Online Resource Table 3 show the concentration of dissolved Hg species depending on sulfide concentration (with or without cysteine) calculated with Visual Minteq software.
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Barrouilhet, S., Monperrus, M., Tessier, E. et al. Effect of exogenous and endogenous sulfide on the production and the export of methylmercury by sulfate-reducing bacteria. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 3835–3846 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22173-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22173-y