There is a worldwide distribution of heavy metal
pollution that can be managed with a bioremediation approach usingmicroorganisms. Several bacterialspecies belonging to the Proteobacteria have been shown to tolerate heavy
metal stress, including toxic salts of noblemetals. Rhodobactersphaeroides,a model bacterium has previously been utilized for bioremediation
studies. A bioinformatics approach was employed here to identify the
distribution of genes associated with heavy metal tolerance among the sequenced
bacterial genomes currently available on the NCBI database. The distribution of
these genes among different groups of bacteria and the Cluster of Orthologous
Groups (COGs)were further characterized. A total of 170,000 heavy metal related genes
were identified across all bacterial species, with a majority of the genes
found in Proteobacteria (46%) and Terrabacteria (39%). Analysis of COGs
revealed that the majority of heavy metal related genes belong to metabolism
(COG 3), including ionic transport, amino acid biosynthesis, and energy
production.
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