ArticleScience advances2015
Global prevalence and distribution of genes and microorganisms involved in mercury methylation.
Article in Science advances, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 103 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
103 citing papers in PubMed, 449 citations in OpenAlex.
- High resolution porewater profiling of methylmercury with a novel equilibrium passive sampler.Environmental science. Advances · 2026Article
- Metagenomics reveals diverse community of putative mercury methylators across different biogeochemical niches in Sansha Yongle blue hole.Marine life science & technology · 2026Article
- Cross-habitat interactions drive methylmercury contamination in a disturbed river ecosystem: novel metagenomic and biogeochemical insights.ISME communications · 2026Article
- A survey of bacterial and fungal community structure and functions in two long-term metalliferous soil habitats.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Diversity of Mercury-Tolerant Microorganisms.Microorganisms · 2025Review
- Sulfate Reduction Drives Elevated Methylmercury Formation in the Water Column of a Eutrophic Freshwater Lake.Environmental science & technology · 2025Article
- The role of prokaryotic mercury methylators and demethylators in Canadian Arctic thermokarst lakes.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Distribution and function of prokaryotes involved in mercury methylation, demethylation, and reduction in the western North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Subcellular thiol functional group distribution inFrontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Anaerobic HgII reduction is driven by cellular HgII-thiol interactions.Access microbiology · 2025Article
- Mercury and Arctic Char Gill Microbiota Correlation in Canadian Arctic Communities.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- S-adenosyl-L-methionine is the unexpected methyl donor for the methylation of mercury by the membrane-associated HgcAB complex.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Global metagenomic survey identifies sewage-derived hgcABNature communications · 2024Article
- The origin of methyl group in methanogen-mediated mercury methylation: From the Wolfe cycle.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Functional Genes and Transcripts Indicate the Existent and Active Microbial Mercury-Methylating Community in Mangrove Intertidal Sediments of an Urbanized Bay.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- Mercury biomagnification in the food web of Agami Pond, Kaw-Roura Nature Reserve, French Guiana.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Soil Geobacteraceae are the key predictors of neurotoxic methylmercury bioaccumulation in rice.Nature food · 2024Article
- Microplastic fragmentation by rotifers in aquatic ecosystems contributes to global nanoplastic pollution.Nature nanotechnology · 2024Article
- Recent advance of microbial mercury methylation in the environment.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2024Review
- Gut heavy metal and antibiotic resistome of humans living in the high Arctic.Frontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
43 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Mercury (Hg) methylation produces the neurotoxic, highly bioaccumulative methylmercury (MeHg). The highly conserved nature of the recently identified Hg methylation genes hgcAB provides a foundation for broadly evaluating spatial and niche-specific patterns of microbial Hg methylation potential in nature. We queried hgcAB diversity and distribution in >3500 publicly available microbial metagenomes, encompassing a broad range of environments and generating a new global view of Hg methylation potential. The hgcAB genes were found in nearly all anaerobic (but not aerobic) environments, including oxygenated layers of the open ocean. Critically, hgcAB was effectively absent in ~1500 human and mammalian microbiomes, suggesting a low risk of endogenous MeHg production. New potential methylation habitats were identified, including invertebrate digestive tracts, thawing permafrost soils, coastal "dead zones," soils, sediments, and extreme environments, suggesting multiple routes for MeHg entry into food webs. Several new taxonomic groups capable of methylating Hg emerged, including lineages having no cultured representatives. Phylogenetic analysis points to an evolutionary relationship between hgcA and genes encoding corrinoid iron-sulfur proteins functioning in the ancient Wood-Ljungdahl carbon fixation pathway, suggesting that methanogenic Archaea may have been the first to perform these biotransformations.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.