Difference between revisions of "Part:BBa K1420001"

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merA, mercuric reductase from Serratia marcescens

Overview

Mercury resistant gene merA encodes a mercuric ion reductase, MerA, that couples with organomercurial lyase, MerB, to detoxify inorganic and organic mercury compound. While MerA and MerB are the key enzymes of mercury detoxification, they orchestrate with mercury transport proteins, MerT and MerP, to confer bacterial mercury resistance. Figure 1 shows the interactions of MerA and other proteins encoded by Mer Operon.

File:MerA in Mer Operon.jpg

This figure is adpated from "Bacterial mercury resistance from atoms to ecosystems". Reference: T. Barkay et al. FEMS Microbiology Reviews 27 (2003) 355-384.

Function

MerA catalyzes the reduction of mercuric ion to the relative inert, volatile monoatomic mercury in a NADPH dependent reaction.

Scheme 1. MerA Catalyzed Reaction

Structure and Mechanism

Characterization of merA

To test the effect of MerA to the level of mercury resistance, we generated a merA deletion mutant and characterized it by zone inhibition test.

Zone of Inhibition Results

Figure 2. Zone Inhibition Test For Mercury Resistance Activity. (A)ZOI of E. coli K12 strain containing pBBRBB::mer. (B) ZOI of E. coli K12 strain containing pBBRBB::gfp. (C)ZOI of E. coli K12 strain containing pBBRBB::merΔmerA, the merA deletion mutant.

Sequence and Features