ArticleApplied and environmental microbiology2013
Mercury methylation by the methanogen Methanospirillum hungatei.
Article in Applied and environmental microbiology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 140 citations in OpenAlex.
- Elevated atmospheric CONature communications · 2025Article
- The role of prokaryotic mercury methylators and demethylators in Canadian Arctic thermokarst lakes.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Global mercury concentrations in biota: their use as a basis for a global biomonitoring framework.Ecotoxicology (London, England) · 2024Review
- Recent advance of microbial mercury methylation in the environment.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2024Review
- Golden Gate Assembly of Aerobic and Anaerobic Microbial Bioreporters.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2022Article
- Nutrient Inputs Stimulate Mercury Methylation by Syntrophs in a Subarctic Peatland.Frontiers in microbiology · 2021Article
- Expanded Phylogenetic Diversity and Metabolic Flexibility of Mercury-Methylating Microorganisms.mSystems · 2020Article
- Structure determination of the HgcAB complex using metagenome sequence data: insights into microbial mercury methylation.Communications biology · 2020Article
- Biotic formation of methylmercury: A bio-physico-chemical conundrum.Limnology and oceanography · 2020Review
- An ImprovedFrontiers in microbiology · 2020Article
- Relative Reactivity and Bioavailability of Mercury Sorbed to or Coprecipitated with Aged Iron Sulfides.Environmental science & technology · 2019Article
- Oxidative Damage in Human Periodontal Ligament Fibroblast (hPLF) after Methylmercury Exposure.Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity · 2019Article
- Methanogens and Iron-Reducing Bacteria: the Overlooked Members of Mercury-Methylating Microbial Communities in Boreal Lakes.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2018Article
- Methylmercury in Industrial Harbor Sediments in Taiwan: First Observations on its Occurrence, Distribution, and Measurement.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Article
- Quantification of Mercury Bioavailability for Methylation Using Diffusive Gradient in Thin-Film Samplers.Environmental science & technology · 2018Article
- Diversity of microbial communities potentially involved in mercury methylation in rice paddies surrounding typical mercury mining areas in China.MicrobiologyOpen · 2018Article
- Syntrophic pathways for microbial mercury methylation.The ISME journal · 2018Article
- Article
- Challenges and opportunities for managing aquatic mercury pollution in altered landscapes.Ambio · 2018Article
- Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Methylmercury (MeHg), a neurotoxic substance that accumulates in aquatic food chains and poses a risk to human health, is synthesized by anaerobic microorganisms in the environment. To date, mercury (Hg) methylation has been attributed to sulfate- and iron-reducing bacteria (SRB and IRB, respectively). Here we report that a methanogen, Methanospirillum hungatei JF-1, methylated Hg in a sulfide-free medium at comparable rates, but with higher yields, than those observed for some SRB and IRB. Phylogenetic analyses showed that the concatenated orthologs of the Hg methylation proteins HgcA and HgcB from M. hungatei are closely related to those from known SRB and IRB methylators and that they cluster together with proteins from eight other methanogens, suggesting that these methanogens may also methylate Hg. Because all nine methanogens with HgcA and HgcB orthologs belong to the class Methanomicrobia, constituting the late-evolving methanogenic lineage, methanogenic Hg methylation could not be considered an ancient metabolic trait. Our results identify methanogens as a new guild of Hg-methylating microbes with a potentially important role in mineral-poor (sulfate- and iron-limited) anoxic freshwater environments.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.