Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Aug;34(4):937-946.
doi: 10.1007/s10534-021-00319-8. Epub 2021 Jul 13.

The role of cysteine in tellurate reduction and toxicity

Jennifer L Goff  1 , Maxim I Boyanov  2   3 , Kenneth M Kemner  3 , Nathan Yee  4   5
Affiliations

The role of cysteine in tellurate reduction and toxicity

Jennifer L Goff et al. Biometals. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

The tellurium oxyanion tellurate is toxic to living organisms even at low concentrations; however, its mechanism of toxicity is poorly understood. Here, we show that exposure of Escherichia coli K-12 to tellurate results in reduction to elemental tellurium (Te[0]) and the formation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS). Toxicity assays performed with E. coli indicated that pre-oxidation of the intracellular thiol pools increases cellular resistance to tellurate-suggesting that intracellular thiols are important in tellurate toxicity. X-ray absorption spectroscopy experiments demonstrated that cysteine reduces tellurate to elemental tellurium. This redox reaction was found to generate superoxide anions. These results indicate that tellurate reduction to Te(0) by cysteine is a source of ROS in the cytoplasm of tellurate-exposed cells.

Keywords: Escherichia coli; Metalloids; Tellurate; Tellurate toxicity; Tellurium.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Avazéri C, Turner RJ, Pommier J, Weiner JH, Giordano G, Verméglio A (1997) Tellurite reductase activity of nitrate reductase is responsible for the basal resistance of Escherichia coli to tellurite. Microbiology 143:1181–1189. https://doi.org/10.1099/00221287-143-4-1181 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ba LA, Döring M, Jamier V, Jacob C (2010) Tellurium: an element with great biological potency and potential. Org Biomol Chem 8:4203–4216. https://doi.org/10.1039/C0OB00086H - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baba T, Ara T, Hasegawa M, Takai Y, Okumura Y, Baba M, Datsenko KA, Tomita M, Wanner BL, Mori H (2006) Construction of Escherichia coli K-12 in-frame, single-gene knockout mutants: the Keio collection. Mol Syst Biol. https://doi.org/10.1038/msb4100050 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Baesman SM, Stolz JF, Kulp TR, Oremland RS (2009) Enrichment and isolation of Bacillus beveridgei sp. nov., a facultative anaerobic haloalkaliphile from Mono Lake, California, that respires oxyanions of tellurium, selenium, and arsenic. Extremophiles 13:695–705. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-009-0257-z - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bébien M, Lagniel G, Garin J, Touati D, Verméglio A, Labarre J (2002) Involvement of superoxide dismutases in the response of Escherichia coli to selenium oxides. J Bacteriol 184:1556. https://doi.org/10.1128/JB.184.6.1556-1564.2002 - DOI - PubMed - PMC

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources