Toward Methylmercury Bioremediation

摘要

Human activities such as coal burning have produced many tons of ionic mercury, which is readily converted to methylmer-cury by microbes in sediments. This contamination is dangerous, because methylmercury accumulates in living tissues, where it is highly toxic. Specialized bacteria can grow naturally in methylmer-cury-contaminated environments, because they produce the methyl-mercury-degrading enzyme MerB. Because of its unique ability to cleave carbon-mercury bonds, MerB is crucial to efforts to clean up methylmercury from contaminated waterways.