• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.593-601
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• 2012

Heavy metals and metalloids removal can be considered as one of the most important world challenges because of their toxicity and direct impact on human health. Many processes have been introduced but biological processes of remediation seem to offer the most suitable solution in terms of efficiency and low cost. Actinobacteria constitute one of the major microbial populations in soil, and this can be attributed to their adaptive morphological structure as well as their exceptional metabolic power. Among microbes, actinobacteria are morphologic intermediate between fungi and bacteria. Studies on microbial diversities in metal contaminated lands have shown that actinobacteria may constitute a dominantly active microbiota in addition to ${\alpha}$ Proteobacteria. Furthermore, isolation studies have shown metal removal mechanisms which are reminiscent of notable multiresistant strains, such as Cupriavidus metallidurans. Apart from members of genus Streptomyces, which produce more than 90% of commercialized antibiotics, and the nitrogen fixing Frankia, little attention has been given to other members of this phylum. This is because of difficult culture condition requirements and maintenance. In this review, we focused on specific isolation of actinobacteria and their potential applications in metal bioremediation and plant growth promotion.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2002

Bacteria have evolved various types of resistance mechanism to toxic heavy metals, such as arsenic and antimony. An arsenical and antimonial resistant bacterium was isolated from a shallow creek draining a coal-mining area near Taebaek City, in Kangwon-Do, Korea. The isolated bacterium was identified and named as Pseudomonas sp. KM20 after biochemical and physiological studies were conducted. A plasmid was identified and its function was studied. Original cells harboring the plasmid were able to grow in the presence of 15 mM sodium arsenite, while the plasmid-cured (plasmidless) strain was sensitive to as little as 0.5 mM sodium arsenate. These results indicated that the plasmid of Pseudomonas sp. KM20 does indeed encode the arsenic resistance determinant. In growth experiments, prior exposure to 0.1 mM arsenate allowed immediate growth when they were challenged with 5 mM arsenate, 5 mM arsenite, or 0.1 mM antimonite. These results suggested that the arsenate, arsenite, and antimonite resistance determinants of Pseudomonas sp. KM20 plasmid were indeed inducible. When induced, plasmid-bearing resistance cells showed a decreased accumulation $of\;73^As$ and showed an enhanced efflux $of\;^73As$. These results suggested that plasmid encoded a transport system that extruded the toxic metalloids, resulting in the lowering of the intracellular concentration of toxic oxyanion. In a Southern blot study, hybridization with an E. coli R773 arsA-specific probe strongly suggested the absence of an arsA cistron in the plasmid-associated arsenical and antimonial resistance determinant of Pseudomonas sp. KM20.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.34-44
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• 2021

Acid mine drainage (AMD) resulting from pyrite oxidation in mining areas, subsequently leads to soil acidification accompanied by lowering pH and high concentration of metals and metalloids in its surrounding environment. Regarding to this, the microbial amelioration has been considered as a promising option for a more cost-effective and eco-friendlier countermeasure, compared to the use of alkaline chemicals. This study was aimed to evaluate influencing factors in microbially-mediated amelioration of acidic soil spiked by simulated AMD. For this, microcosm experiments were conducted by acid-neutralizing bacterial consortium (dominated by Klebsiella sp. and Raoultella sp.) under the various conditions of AMD spikes (0-2,500 mg SO42-/L), together with acidic mine soil (0-100 g) or sphagnum peat (0-5 g) in the 200 mL of nutrient medium. The employed bacterial consortium, capable of resisting to high level of sulfate concentration (up to 1,500 mg SO42-/L) in low pH, generated the ammonium while concomitantly reduced the sulfate, subsequently contributing to the effective soil stabilization with an evolution of soil pH up to neutral. Furthermore, it demonstrates that suitable condition has to be tuned for successful microbial metabolism to facilitate with neutralization during practical application.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2023

Arsenic (As), which is ubiquitous throughout the environment, represents a major environmental threat at higher concentration and poses a global public health concern in certain geographic areas. Most of the conventional arsenic remediation techniques that are currently in use have certain limitations. This situation necessitates a potential remediation strategy, and in this regard bioremediation technology is increasingly important. Being the oldest representativse of life on Earth, microbes have developed various strategies to cope with hostile environments containing different toxic metals or metalloids including As. Such conditions prompted the evolution of numerous genetic systems that have enabled many microbes to utilize this metalloid in their metabolic activities. Therefore, within a certain scope bacterial isolates could be helpful for sustainable management of As-contamination. Research interest in microbial As(III) oxidation has increased recently, as oxidation of As(III) to less hazardous As(V) is viewed as a strategy to ameliorate its adverse impact. In this review, the novelty of As(III) oxidation is highlighted and the implication of As(III)-oxidizing microbes in environmental management and their prospects are also discussed. Moreover, future exploitation of As(III)-oxidizing bacteria, as potential plant growth-promoting bacteria, may add agronomic importance to their widespread utilization in managing soil quality and yield output of major field crops, in addition to reducing As accumulation and toxicity in crops.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.391-397
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• 2014

Acid mine drainage occurrence is a serious environmental problem by mining industry; it usually contain high levels of metal ions, such as iron, copper, zinc, aluminum, and manganese, as well as metalloids of which arsenic is generally of greatest concern. It causes mine impacted soil pollution with mining and smelting activities, fossil fuel combustion, and waste disposal. In the present study, three bacterial strains capable of producing urease were isolated by selective enrichment of heavy metal contaminated soils from a minei-mpacted area. All isolated bacterial strains were identified Sporosarcina pasteurii with more than 98% of similarity, therefore they were named Sporosarcina sp. KM-01, KM-07, and KM-12. The heavy metals detected from the collected mine soils containing bacterial isolates as Mn ($170.50mg\;kg^{-1}$), As ($114.05mg\;kg^{-1}$), Zn ($92.07mg\;kg^{-1}$), Cu ($62.44mg\;kg^{-1}$), and Pb ($40.29mg\;kg^{-1}$). The KM-01, KM-07, and KM-12 strains were shown to be able to precipitate calcium carbonate using urea as a energy source that was amended with calcium chloride. SEM-EDS analyses showed that calcium carbonate was successfully produced and increased with time. To confirm the calcium carbonate precipitation ability, urease activity and precipitate weight were also measured and compared. These results demonstrate that all isolated bacterial strains could potentially be used in the bioremediation of acidic soil contaminated by heavy metals by mining activity.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.64-77
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• 2021

Objective: Biological monitoring of trace elements in human blood samples has become an important indicator of the health environment. The purpose of this study was to detect and evaluate multiple metal items in blood samples based on ICP-MS, to perform comparative evaluation with the existing analysis method, and to develop and verify a new method. Methods: 100 μL of whole blood from 80 healthy subjects was used to analyze ten metals (Sb, tAs, Cd, Pb, Mn, Hg, Mo, Ni, Se, Tl) using ICP-MS. Verification of the analysis method included calculation of linearity, accuracy, precision and detection limits. In addition, a comparative test with the conventional graphite furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy (GF-AAS) method was performed. In the case of Pb, Cd, and Hg in whole blood, cross-analysis between Pb, Cd, and Hg analysis methods was performed to confirm the difference between the existing method and the new method (ICP-MS). Results: The coefficient of determination (R2) was 0.999 or higher in seven items and 0.995 or higher in three items. The Pb result showed that Pearson's correlation coefficient was very high at 0.983, and the intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.966. The Cd result showed that Pearson's correlation coefficient was 0.917 between the existing method and the new analysis concentration value. Its intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.960, and there was no significant difference between the two groups. Hg had a low correlation at 0.687, and the intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.761, which was lower than that of Pb and Cd. The intra-day and inter-day accuracy of Pd and Cd were satisfactory, but Hg did not meet the criteria for both accuracy and precision when compared with the conventional analysis method. Conclusion: This study can be meaningful in that it proposes a more efficient and feasible analysis method by verifying a blood heavy metal concentration experiment using multiple simultaneous analyses. All samples were processed and analyzed using the new ICP-MS. It was confirmed that the agreement between the two methods was very high, with the agreement between the current and new methods being 0.769 to 0.998. This study proposes an efficient simultaneous methodology capable of analyzing multiple elements with small samples. In the future, studies of various applications and the reliability of ICP-MS analysis methods are required, and research on the verification of accurate, precise, and continuous analysis methods is required.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.36 no.4 s.105
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• pp.434-446
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• 2003

The fate and transport of many trace metals, metalloids, and radionuclides in porous media is closely linked to the biogeochemical reactions that occur as a result of organic carbon being sequentially degraded by different microorganisms using a series of terminal electron acceptors. The spatial distribution of these biogeochemical reactions is affected by processes that are often unique and/or characteristic to a specific environment. Generic model formulations have been developed and applied to simulate the fate and transport of arsenic in two hydrologic settings, permanently flooded freshwater sediments, namely non-vegetated wetland sediments and vegetated wetland sediments. The key physical processes that have been considered are sedimentation, effects of roots on biogeochemistry, advective transport, and differences in mixing processes. Steady-state formulations were applied to the sedimentary environments. Results of numerical simulations show that these physical processes significantly affect the chemical profiles of different electron acceptors, their reduced species, and arsenate as well as arsenite that will result from the degradation of an organic carbon source in the sediments. Even though specific biological transformations are allowed to proceed only in zones where they are thermodynamically favorable, the results show that mixing as well as abiotic reactions can make the profiles of individual electron acceptors overlap and/or appear to reverse their expected order.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.185-195
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• 2012

Due to the high reduction and sorption capacity as well as the large specific surface area, nanosized mackinawite (FeS) is useful in reductively transforming chlorinated organic pollutants and sequestering toxic metals and metalloids. Due to the dynamic nature in its colloid stability, however, nanosized FeS may be washed out with the groundwater flow or result in aquifer clogging via particle aggregation. Thus, these nanoparticles should be modified such as to be built into permeable reactive barriers. This study employed coating methods in efforts to facilitate the installation of permeable reactive barriers of nanosized mackinawite. In applying the methods, nanosized mackinawite was coated on non-treated silica sand (NTS) and chemically treated silica sand (CTS). For both silica sands, the maximum coating of mackinawite occurred around pH 5.4, the condition of which was governed by (1) the solubility of mackinawite and (2) the surface charge of both silica and mackinawite. Under this pH condition, the maximum coating by NTS and CTS were found to be 0.101 mmol FeS/g and 0.043 mmol FeS/g respectively, with such elevated coatings by NTS likely linked with impurities (e.g., iron oxides) on its surface. Arsenite sorption experiments were performed under anoxic conditions using uncoated silica sands and those coated with mackinawite at the optimal pH to compare their reactivity. At pH 7, the relative sorption efficiency between uncoated NTS and coated NTS changed with the initial concentration of arsenite. At the lower initial concentration, uncoated NTS showed the higher sorption efficiency, whereas at the higher concentration, coated NTS exhibited the higher sorption efficiency. This could be attributed to different sorption mechanisms as a function of arsenite concentration: the surface complexation of arsenite with the iron oxide impurity on silica sand at the low concentration and the precipitation as arsenic sulfides by reaction with mackinawite coating at the high concentration. Compared to coated NTS, coated CTS showed the lower arsenite removal at pH 7 due to its relatively lower mackinawite coating. Taken together, our results indicate that NTS is a more effective material than CTS for the coating of nanosized mackinawite.