Superfund Site Harbors Extremophiles Producing Potent Compounds

Abstract

About 200 miles from Yellowstone National Park, is a site not as scenic, yet proving nearly as exotic in terms of its rich diversity of extremophiles. Instead of geysers and hot springs, the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Mont., contains 30 billion gallons of highly acidic waters (pH 2.5) from abandoned copper mines. The Berkely Pit is the largest site in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, which provides money for environmental cleanup at hazardous waste sites. Although nearly saturated with sulfates of iron, copper, aluminum, and zinc, the seemingly inhospitable waters and sediments in the Berkeley Pit yield more than 60 different microorganisms, including some that produce compounds that kill cancer cells and are active against other drug discovery targets, according to Andrea and Donald Stierle at Montana Tech of the University of Montana in Butte and their collaborators.