Abstract
Phytochelatins, the enzymatic products of phytochelatin synthase, play a principal role in protecting the plants from heavy metal and metalloid toxicity due to their ability to scavenge metal ions. In the present study, we investigated the capacity of soluble intracellular extracts from E. coli cells expressing R. tropici phytochelatin synthase to synthesize gold nanoparticle. We discovered that the reaction mediated by soluble extracts from the recombinant E. coli cells had a higher yield of gold nanoparticles, compared to that from the control cells. The compositional and morphological properties of the gold nanoparticles synthesized by the intracellular extracts from recombinant cells and control cells were similar. In addition, this extracellular nanoparticle synthesis method produced purer gold nanoparticles, avoiding the isolation of nanoparticles from cellular debris when whole cells are used to synthesize nanoparticles. Our results suggested that phytochelatins can improve the efficiency of gold nanoparticle synthesis mediated by bacterial soluble intracellular extracts, and the potential of extracellular nanoparticle synthesis platform for the production of nanoparticles in large quantity and pure form is worth further investigation.
Highlights
Nanoparticles have diverse applications in various fields, including, but not limited to, serving as carriers for drug delivery, new materials for pathogen detection or food preservation, prevention and remediation of heavy metal contaminants, as well as generation of renewable energy production [1]
We potential role rolein innanoparticle nanoparticlesynthesis synthesishas has been reported study, proposed that the overexpression of the enzyme promoted the synthesis of phytochelatins we proposed that the overexpression of the enzyme promoted the synthesis of phytoin the host E. coli cells based on literature review and our own observations, we chelatins in the host E. coli cells based on literature review and our own observations, we didn’t measure the phytochelatin synthase activity or the level of phytochelatins in the cells
We reported that the recombinant E. coli cells transformed with R. tropici phytochelatin synthase gene displayed a better basal growth and an enhanced tolerance to a few heavy metals [16], indicating that the enzyme was active and generated phytochelatins that facilitate the survival of host cells upon heavy metal challenges
Summary
Nanoparticles have diverse applications in various fields, including, but not limited to, serving as carriers for drug delivery, new materials for pathogen detection or food preservation, prevention and remediation of heavy metal contaminants, as well as generation of renewable energy production [1]. Microbial synthesis of nanoparticles is increasingly becoming the focus for the development of new methods for nanoparticle production due to its low cost, environmental friendliness and potential to upgrade for large scale production. Microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi, possess metal ion regulators, transporters, ligands, metal-dependent reductases, metal binding and reducing agents that are natural and essential for the process of biological synthesis of nanoparticles, from reducing metal ions into elemental metal, to further binding, capping and stabilizing the metal elements as nanoparticles [1,2,3]. The phytochelatins are short peptides that have a general structure of (γ-Glu-Cys)n-Gly, where n is usually no more than 5, but can be between 2 and
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