Chapter 12
Arsenic-Transforming Bacteria: A Potential
Weapon for Arsenic-Contaminated Soil
Prabhakaran Narayanasamy and Radhesh Krishnan Subramanian
Abstract Arsenic (As) is one of the ten major poisonous metals occurring on earth
crust or environment originated from rocks, minerals, and anthropogenic sources.
This toxic metalloid occurs as insoluble trivalent arsenite (As III) and pentavalent
arsenate (As V) which are fatal to human health as recognized by the World Health
Organization (WHO). The insoluble form of arsenic occurs in trivalent arsenite
(As III) and pentavalent arsenate (As V) forms. As V is a structural equivalent of
phosphate and breaks oxidative phosphorylation, which is a vital reaction of energy
uptake in many beings including humans. Processing a phosphate structure analogue
which could enter any bacterial cell through phosphate transport system and phosphorylates replacing phosphate thereby inhibits the metabolism. Arsenic is uptaken
by aquaglyceroporins at neutral pH in bacteria, yeasts, and mammals by binding to
sulfhydryl groups of cysteine residues in proteins leading to an increased cytotoxicity. The soil microbes play a substantial role in its biogeochemical processing, by
directly taking part in As speciation or doing so circuitously through redox interactions with other metals and nutrients, e.g., iron and nitrogen. The development of
descriptive and comparative approaches with the cumulative number of genomes
available was conceived not only to identify several genetic elements of the arsenic
metabolism but also to explicate their phylogenetic circulation and its regulation.
Numerous mechanisms are used by these microbes such as avoiding/reducing the
toxicity due to arsenic by a phosphate uptake, by lipid peroxidation in the cell
membranes, and by modifying the ars gene which controls the arsenic detoxification
pathway. In this context, we will discuss in detail on the importance of arsenictransforming bacteria and its potential application in bioremediation of
contaminated soil.
Keywords Arsenic · Arsenate · Arsenite · Arsenic-transforming bacteria ·
Bioremediation · Soil
P. Narayanasamy · R. K. Subramanian (*)
T. Stanes and Company Limited, Coimbatore, India
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
J. Aravind et al. (eds.), Strategies and Tools for Pollutant Mitigation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63575-6_12
239
Arsenic-Transforming Bacteria: A Potential
Weapon for Arsenic-Contaminated Soil
Prabhakaran Narayanasamy and Radhesh Krishnan Subramanian
Abstract Arsenic (As) is one of the ten major poisonous metals occurring on earth
crust or environment originated from rocks, minerals, and anthropogenic sources.
This toxic metalloid occurs as insoluble trivalent arsenite (As III) and pentavalent
arsenate (As V) which are fatal to human health as recognized by the World Health
Organization (WHO). The insoluble form of arsenic occurs in trivalent arsenite
(As III) and pentavalent arsenate (As V) forms. As V is a structural equivalent of
phosphate and breaks oxidative phosphorylation, which is a vital reaction of energy
uptake in many beings including humans. Processing a phosphate structure analogue
which could enter any bacterial cell through phosphate transport system and phosphorylates replacing phosphate thereby inhibits the metabolism. Arsenic is uptaken
by aquaglyceroporins at neutral pH in bacteria, yeasts, and mammals by binding to
sulfhydryl groups of cysteine residues in proteins leading to an increased cytotoxicity. The soil microbes play a substantial role in its biogeochemical processing, by
directly taking part in As speciation or doing so circuitously through redox interactions with other metals and nutrients, e.g., iron and nitrogen. The development of
descriptive and comparative approaches with the cumulative number of genomes
available was conceived not only to identify several genetic elements of the arsenic
metabolism but also to explicate their phylogenetic circulation and its regulation.
Numerous mechanisms are used by these microbes such as avoiding/reducing the
toxicity due to arsenic by a phosphate uptake, by lipid peroxidation in the cell
membranes, and by modifying the ars gene which controls the arsenic detoxification
pathway. In this context, we will discuss in detail on the importance of arsenictransforming bacteria and its potential application in bioremediation of
contaminated soil.
Keywords Arsenic · Arsenate · Arsenite · Arsenic-transforming bacteria ·
Bioremediation · Soil
P. Narayanasamy · R. K. Subramanian (*)
T. Stanes and Company Limited, Coimbatore, India
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
J. Aravind et al. (eds.), Strategies and Tools for Pollutant Mitigation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63575-6_12
239