Biosensor for screening bacterial mercury methylation: example within the Desulfobulbaceae

Mercury methylation and demethylation processes govern the fate of methylmercury in aquatic ecosystems. Under anoxic conditions, methylation activity is mainly of biological origin and is often the result of sulfate-reducing bacteria. In this study, the use of a luminescent biosensor for screening methylmercury production was validated by exposing the reporter strain to methylating or non-methylating Desulfovibrio strains. The sensitivity of the biosensor to methylmercury was shown to depend on sulfate-reducing bacterial growth conditions. Bioluminescence was measured using 1-10 mM of sulfides. As the sulfide level increased, luminescence decreased by 40-70%, respectively. Nevertheless, assuming an average of 5 mM of sulfide produced during sulfate-reducing growth, a mercury methylation potential of over 4% was detected when using 185 nM of inorganic mercury. Due to technical limitations, mercury speciation has, to date, only been investigated in a small number of bacterial strains, and no consistent phylogenetic distribution has been identified. Here, the biosensor was further used to assess the Hg methylation capacities of an additional 21 strains related to the Desulfobulbaceae. Seven of them were identified as methylmercury producers. Cultivation procedures combined with bacterial biosensors could provide innovative tools to identify new methylator clades amongst the prokaryotes.