Arsenic-eating bacteria may clean mines and save lives.A Melbourne research group, led by microbiologist Dr. Joanne Santini of La Trobe University 1. u/r = unranked 2.AsiaWeek is now discontinued. Student life During the 1970s and 1980s, La Trobe, along with Monash, was considered to have the most politically active student body of any university in Australia. , is working out how to use newly discovered bacteria to clean up contaminated wastewater and drinking water drinking water supply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g. . "We hope the bacteria will one clay be used in bioremediation bi·o·re·me·di·a·tion n. The use of biological agents, such as bacteria or plants, to remove or neutralize contaminants, as in polluted soil or water. . It is theoretically cheaper and safer to use bacteria to clean up an environmental mess than it is to use dangerous and expensive chemical methods that employ chlorine or hydrogen peroxide hydrogen peroxide, chemical compound, H2O2, a colorless, syrupy liquid that is a strong oxidizing agent and, in water solution, a weak acid. It is miscible with cold water and is soluble in alcohol and ether. ," Dr. Santini said. Dr. Santini and her students are studying 13 rare bacteria that were isolated from gold mines in the Northern Territory and Bendigo, Victoria--the only lab in the world to do so. Arsenic occurs naturally in rocks and in this form is harmless. But when exposed to air and water, it becomes soluble and toxic to plants, animals, and humans. Mining and boring rock for drinking wells can expose the rock-bound arsenic to air and water and turn it into two toxic forms: arsenate ar·se·nate n. A salt of arsenic acid. arsenate an uncommon garden pesticide, as lead arsenate, or as antifungal spray on fruit trees or cattle tick dip as sodium arsenate. and arsenite. Arsenate is easy and safe to get rid of. But arsenite is not, and it is this form Dr. Santini hopes to remove with arsenite-eating bacteria on a mass scale. One bacterium. NT-26, eats arsenite and excretes arsenate. The researchers have found the enzyme that is directly responsible for converting arsenite to arsenate, and they are working to identify the same enzyme in the other microbes. They are also hunting for other proteins and genes involved in eating arsenite. "In order to know how to best use these microbes for bioremediation, we must first study how they eat arsenite," Santini said. "We can't just plunk plunk also plonk v. plunked also plonked, plunk·ing also plonk·ing, plunks also plonks v.tr. 1. them into a biological reactor and hope for the best." Santini hopes to harness the bacteria not only to clean up mining waste in Australia, but also to remove arsenic from drinking-water wells in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. "If the iron guts of bacteria that can eat arsenic without dying could be harnessed to process this waste, less damage would be done In the environment, and one day fewer people on the subcontinent will get sick," Santini said. Dr. Santini has an Australian Research Council The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the Australian Government’s main agency for allocating research funding to academics and researchers in Australian universities. Discovery grant to study the arsenite-eating bacteria. |
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