Metals play a key role in our daily lives and affect everything from healthcare to industrialisation and our culture. Covering topics including metal resistance, biomineralization, sulfate remediation, synthetic biology, bacterial bioremediation, biorecycling, microbial adaptation, and fungal diversity, the articles in this collection demonstrate the unique and complex relationship between microbes and metals.
Editorial
A personal retrospective on my research on the microbiology of the element selenium.
Mini Reviews
A review of current technologies in bacterial bioremediation, biorecycling and bioleaching, of copper homeostasis strategies used by bacteria, and how these could be exploited through synthetic biology for bioremediation.
This minireview describes the isolation, early research and legacy tools used to study Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34, a model organism for bacterial metal resistance.
This review provides an historical overview of research on selenium in microbiology, its biogeochemical cycle, and the organisms and their metabolisms that mediate key transformations, including oxidation/reduction and methylation.
Research Articles
Terribacillus harbors an unusual ars operon that confers resistance to arsenite in Escherichia coli.
Sulfate promotes the enzymatic (via c-type cytochromes) and abiotic (via sulfide) iron reduction by sulfate-reducing bacteria.
Sulfur cycling in passive remediation systems that precipitate heavy metals out of coal mine drainage requires both biotic and abiotic processes and actively growing microbes.
Heterotrophic generalist microbes comprised a core microbiome within steel microbial communities that were functionally but not phylogenetically conserved across salinity.
A novel enzyme selective for tellurium reduction was isolated from an environmental sample and characterized.
Results indicated that microbial adaptation changed in response to different levels of contamination throughout the soil profiles, which were distinct from the control profile.
Defining the spatial distribution of microorganisms and elements in this REE-enriched Mn-oxide producing ecosystem contribute to a better understanding of specific niches and parameters driving the emergence of these communities.
This study identifies newly described As- and Tl-tolerant bacteria and fungi with potential for use in bioremediation strategies.
This article describes a novel strategy employed by bacteria to reduce the toxicity of lead by forming a mineral with limited solubility.
Bacillussp. Y3 can efficiently reduce Se(IV) and Te(IV) via a mechanism involving TrxR.
Bacteria living on gold particles have physiological and genomic capacities to ensure survival during Au biogeochemical cycling.
Metal impacts on sediment-associated microbial community assembly.
