Heavy metal remediation system
AssigneeInter American University of Puerto Rico
InventorOscar N. Ruiz
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Abstract
The invention provides a system of heavy metal sequestration by bacteria. The bacteria expresses the ppk, mt, and/or β-galactosidase (lacZ) genes and can tolerate at least 25 μM mercury, 1,000 μM zinc, 250 μM cadmium, and 3,000 μM Pb. The system allows for facile determination of the presence of heavy metal contaminants in a liquid and the facile collection of the bacteria that has sequestered large amounts of heavy metal. Further provided is a system of gene expression in bacteria that comprises phage and plastid gene expression elements and delivers a particularly high level of protein expression and heavy metal resistance.
Claims18
A bacterium comprising a transgenic non-fusion mt1 chelator agent, wherein the bacterium is resistant to between at least 20 μM and about 160 μM Hg.
A bacterium comprising a pBSK-P16S-g10-lacZ-3′UTR plasmid wherein the ability of β-galactosidase to cleave 5-Bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl-β-D-galactopyranoside (X-gal) is reduced by the presence of mercury.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.