PRIYANKA CHAKRABORTY, AMITY UNIVERSITY KOLKATA
Heavy metal collection from industrial wastes and agriculture is a long-standing challenge. This is more dangerous for copper since pollution from copper is unsafe for both the environment and for human health. The researchers, in this study, applied a two-way approach of Darwin’s theory of natural selection with bacterial bioengineering to produce a biological system with a channel for the build-up of Cu2+ ions.
A library of non-pathogenic Escherichia coli strains was targeted to express seven potential copper-binding peptides encoded by a DNA motif and fused to Maltose Binding Protein (MBP). Most of these peptide-MBP showed tolerance to high concentrations of copper sulphate. UV–Vis spectroscopic analysis indicated a convenient molar ratio of peptide-copper complexes, while a combination of bioinformatics-based structure modelling corroborated the length of Cu2+ binding among the peptides. Further, these results reported the capability of proper copper bioaccumulation.
Bioengineering of Escherichia coli for suitable biological results is not new for scientists and researchers. They have been using E. coli for several decades now. On the other hand, copper is an important trace element that positively affects cellular physiology and numerous cellular enzymes. Subsequently, it has been seen that human-induced activities have raised copper concentration to 3mM, which is way beyond the environmental quality standard. Hence an urgent need to develop a procedure for the cost-effective and environment-friendly cure of copper was brought into notice.
Recombinant DNA technology gifts us the methods for holding metal-binding peptide(s) to fuse partners such as bacterial outer membrane proteins, the Maltose Binding Protein etc. In this study, researchers designed a ‘synthetic degenerate’ DNA fragment of 30 bps which was expressed as a collaboration at the C-terminal of MBP by harmless laboratory E. coli. These predicted to contain potential U-shaped Cu2+ ion coordination pocket that pointed out the toxic levels of copper in soils.
This report shows the efficient, cost-sufficient and the environment-friendly biological system potentially capable of copper bioaccumulation, and which could easily be ingrained for the removal of other heavy metals or the bio-mining of rare metals. Scientists are now excited for its’ practical approach.
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Citation:
Gahlot, D.K., Taheri, N., Mahato, D.R. et al. Bioengineering of non-pathogenic Escherichia coli to enrich for accumulation of environmental copper. Sci Rep10, 20327 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-76178-z
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