Here, we report about a unique aquatic fungus Mucor hiemalisEH8 that can remove toxic ionic mercury from water by intracellular accumulation and reduction into elemental mercury (Hg0 ). EH8 was isolated from a microbial biofilm grown in sulfidic-reducing spring water sourced at a Marching's site located downhill from hop cultivation areas with a history of mercury use. A thorough biodiversity s...

Mercury exposure is the second-most common cause of toxic metal poisoning. Public health concern over mercury exposure, due to contamination of fish with methylmercury and the elemental mercury content of dental amalgams, has long been a topic of political and medical debate. Although the toxicology of mercury is complex, there is evidence for antioxidant protection in the prevention of neurolo...

background: contamination of water by toxic chemicals has become commonly recognized as an environmental concern. based on our clinical observation in mashhad, northeastern iran, many people might be at risk of exposure to high concentrations of toxic heavy metals in water. because wastewater effluents as well as water wells have been commonly used for irrigation over the past decades, there ha...

BACKGROUND Mercury is a toxic heavy metal and is known to affect many diseases. However, few studies have examined the effects of mercury exposure on liver function in the general population. We examined the association between blood mercury concentrations and liver enzyme levels in the elderly. METHODS We included 560 elderly participants (60 years or older) who were recruited from 2008 to 2...

Mercury, with its reactive forms being the most deleterious for the trophic chains, has been identified as a major pollutant in a few confined bodies of the coastal zone. Due to feeding, burrowing, and bioirrigation activities, infauna are known to play a crucial role in the biogeochemical processes of contaminants. The main goal of the present study is to evaluate the effects of Hediste divers...

Metal ion binding domains are found in proteins that mediate transport, buffering or detoxification of metal ions. In this study, we have performed an in silico analysis of metal binding proteins and have identified putative metal binding motifs for the ions of cadmium, cobalt, zinc, arsenic, mercury, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum and nickel. A pattern search against the UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot...

Mercury is a toxic and bio-accumulative heavy metal of global concern. While good deals of research have been conducted on the toxic effects of mercury, little is known about the mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of male reproductive dysfunction induced by mercury. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the effects and underlying mechanisms of chronic mercury exposure at low l...

The effects of trace metal contaminants (lead, cadmium, and mercury) on the immunologic responses of rats infected with Trypanosoma lewisi were investigated to determine whether chronic exposures to subclinical levels of these metals have adverse effects on the host's ability to respond to an infective agent.Earlier and higher levels of parasitemia were detected in animals exposed to cadmium, l...

The present study deals with Bacterial response as determinant of heavy metals stress and antibiotics by isolation, identification and characterization of heavy metal resistant bacteria which was isolated from sewage effluent collected in three different places of Ganga river in Allahabad, The two isolates were selected based on high concentration of heavy metal and antibiotic resistances. Morp...

The mechanisms of toxicity and, particularly, the potential carcinogenicity of inorganic mercury are still under debate. Results of mutagenicity and genotoxicity testing with mercury have been inconsistent: mercury induces DNA single-strand breaks at low concentrations in mammalian cells but has not proved mutagenic in several bacterial mutagenicity assays. We investigated the mutagenicity of s...