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Appl. Environ. Microbiol., Jun 1995, 2276-2285, Vol 61, No. 6
Copyright © 1995, American Society for Microbiology

Nickel-Resistant Bacteria from Anthropogenically Nickel-Polluted and Naturally Nickel-Percolated Ecosystems

R Stoppel and HG Schlegel
Institut fur Mikrobiologie, Georg-August-Universitat, D-37077 Gottingen, Germany

DNA fragments harboring the nickel resistance determinants from bacteria isolated from anthropogenically polluted ecosystems in Europe and Zaire were compared with those harboring the nickel resistance determinants from bacteria isolated from naturally nickel-percolated soils from New Caledonia by DNA-DNA hybridization. The biotinylated DNA probes were derived from the previously described Alcaligenes eutrophus CH34, Alcaligenes xylosoxidans 31A, Alcaligenes denitrificans 4a-2, and Klebsiella oxytoca CCUG 15788 and four new nickel resistance-determining fragments cloned from strains isolated from soils under nickel-hyperaccumulating trees. Nine probes were hybridized with endonuclease-cleaved plasmid and total DNA samples from 56 nickel-resistant strains. Some of the New Caledonian strains were tentatively identified as Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas mendocina, Comamonas, Hafnia alvei, Burkholderia, Arthrobacter aurescens, and Arthrobacter ramosus strains. The DNA of most strains showed homologies to one or several of the following nickel resistance determinants: the cnr and ncc operons of the strains A. eutrophus CH34 and A. xylosoxidans 31A, respectively, the nre operon of strain 31A, and the nickel resistance determinants of K. oxytoca. On the basis of their hybridization reactions the nickel resistance determinants of the strains could be assigned to four groups: (i) cnr/ncc type, (ii) cnr/ncc/nre type, (iii) K. oxytoca type, and (iv) others. The majority of the strains were assigned to the known groups. Among the strains from Belgium and Zaire, exclusively the cnr/ncc and the cnr/ncc/nre types were found. Among the New Caledonian strains all four types were represented. Homologies to the nre operon were found only in combination with the cnr/ncc operon. The homologies to the cnr/ncc operon were the most abundant and were detected alone or together with homologies to the nre operon. Only the DNA of the strains isolated from soil in Scotland and the United States and that of five of the New Caledonian strains did not show any detectable homologies to any of our probes. The nickel resistance fragment isolated from Burkholderia strain 32W-2 was studied in some detail. This 15-kb BamHI fragment conferred resistance to 1 to 5 mM NiCl(inf2) to Escherichia coli and resistance to up to 25 mM NiCl(inf2) to A. eutrophus. It showed strong homologies to both the cnr/ncc operon and the nre operon and conferred strictly regulated (inducible) nickel resistance to A. eutrophus.

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