IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v5y2008i5p450-456d3771.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of Heavy Metal Contamination upon Soil Microbes: Lead-induced Changes in General and Denitrifying Microbial Communities as Evidenced by Molecular Markers

Author

Listed:
  • Dmitri Sobolev

    (Department of Biology, P. O. Box 18540, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, Jackson State University, 1400 J.R. Lynch St.., Jackson, MS 39217 U.S.A)

  • Maria Begonia

    (Department of Biology, P. O. Box 18540, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, Jackson State University, 1400 J.R. Lynch St.., Jackson, MS 39217 U.S.A)

Abstract

Lead (Pb) is a common environmental contaminant found in soils. Unlike other metals, Pb has no biological role, and is potentially toxic to microorganisms. Effects of low (1 ppm) and high (500-2000) levels of lead (Pb) upon the soil microbial community was investigated by the PCR/DGGE analysis of the 16S and nirK gene markers, indicative of general microbial community and denitrifying community, respectively. Community analysis by use of those markers had shown that Pb has detectable effects upon the community diversity even at the lowest concentration tested. Analysis of sample diversity and similarity between the samples suggested that there are several thresholds crossed as metal concentration increase, each causing a substantial change in microbial diversity. Preliminary data obtained in this study suggest that the denitrifying microbial community adapts to elevated levels of Pb by selecting for metal-resistant forms of nitrite reductases.

Suggested Citation

  • Dmitri Sobolev & Maria Begonia, 2008. "Effects of Heavy Metal Contamination upon Soil Microbes: Lead-induced Changes in General and Denitrifying Microbial Communities as Evidenced by Molecular Markers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 5(5), pages 1-7, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:5:y:2008:i:5:p:450-456:d:3771
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/5/5/450/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/5/5/450/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhanbin Luo & Jing Ma & Fu Chen & Xiaoxiao Li & Shaoliang Zhang, 2018. "Effects of Pb Smelting on the Soil Bacterial Community near a Secondary Lead Plant," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-16, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Lead; 16S; soil; DGGE; microbial diversity;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:5:y:2008:i:5:p:450-456:d:3771. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.