Acute toxicity of Hg0and Hg2+ions toEscherichia coli
Open Access
- 1 January 1993
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Chemical Speciation and Bioavailability
- Vol. 5 (3) , 97-100
- https://doi.org/10.1080/09542299.1993.11083208
Abstract
Acute toxicity tests using mercuric ions (Hg2+) at the concentration of 10 and 50 μg L−1 were carried out using Escherichia coli as the organism test. Toxicity was evaluated by measuring the inhibition in the microbial respiration, at 37°C, within 60 min after the metal spike. It has been shown that mercuric ions are reduced to the much less toxic form of elemental mercury (Hg0) by the glucose, which is usually present in the microbial culture medium as a carbon source. Based on this evidence, inhibition in the microbial respiration caused by the presence of 5,000 μg L−1 of Hg0 were predicted to be similar to the effect caused by 10 μ L−1 of Hg2+ ions. This hypothesis has been proved to be true under the experimental conditions used in the bioassays.Keywords
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