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New ORNL tool probes for genes linked to toxic methyl mercury, could help Y-12 cleanup

Posted at 7:43 pm July 24, 2016
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

ORNL Andrew King Mercury Methylation Genes

Andrew King loads a gel with amplified gene fragments to detect the presence of mercury methylation genes in samples from East Fork Poplar Creek in Oak Ridge. (Photo by ORNL)

 

Environmental scientists can more efficiently detect genes required to convert mercury in the environment into more toxic methylmercury with molecular probes developed by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The research could help the cleanup work at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

“We now have a quick and easy-to-use tool that we can employ in any environment to test for the presence of microorganisms capable of methylating mercury and determine how abundant they are,” said ORNL’s Geoff Christensen, a post-doc and lead author of a paper published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

In 2013, ORNL researchers reported in Science on the discovery of two genes known to transform inorganic mercury into its highly toxic organic form. Development of the newly validated probes further advances research to protect human health, a press release said.

For this study, researchers tested the probes against 31 strains of microorganisms for which they know the ones that produce methylmercury and scored a 94 percent confirmation rate, the press release said. This validation procedure is critical to the next step of moving the probes into the field to help determine the amount of methylmercury likely to be generated in any given environment. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Front Page News, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Y-12 National Security Complex Tagged With: Ally Soren, Andrew King, Ann Wymore, Anthony Palumbo, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Biosciences Division, Craig Brandt, Cynthia Gilmour, Development and Validation of Broad-Range Qualitative and Clade-Specific Quantitative Molecular Probes for Assessing Mercury Methylation in the Environment, DOE, Dwayne Elias, East Fork Poplar Creek, Eugenio Santillan, Geoff Christensen, inorganic mercury, Judy Wall, mercury, mercury methylation, mercury methylation genes, methylmercury, Mircea Podar, molecular probes, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Office of Science, ORNL, Richard Hurt Jr., science, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Steven Brown, U.S. Department of Energy, University of Missouri, Y-12 National Security Complex

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Classifieds

Public Notice: NNSA announces no significant impact of Y-12 Development Organization operations at Horizon Center

AVAILABILITY OF THE FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FOR THE OFFSITE HOUSING OF THE Y-12 DEVELOPMENT … [Read More...]

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