The objectives of this study were to (i) assess trace metal concentrations in Hydrilla verticillata and sediment from an estuarine creek in Alabama (USA), where high metal levels in biota were previously reported, and (ii) investigate the relationship between metal concentrations in H. verticillata and the sediment compartment. Our results indicate that sediment and H. verticillata exhibit mode...

Trace metals are essential for health but toxic when present in excess. The maintenance of trace metals at physiologic levels reflects both import and export by cells and absorption and excretion by organs. The mechanism by which this maintenance is achieved in vertebrate organisms is incompletely understood. To explore this, we chose zebrafish as our model organism, as they are amenable to bot...

Photosynthetic organisms need trace metals for various biological processes and different groups of microalgae have distinctive obligate necessities due to their respective biochemical requirements and ecological niches. We have previously shown that the dinoflagellate Symbiodinium kawagutii requires high concentrations of bioavailable Fe to achieve optimum growth. Here, we further explored the...

We propose a novel metal artifact reduction (MAR) algorithm for CT images that completes a corrupted sinogram along the metal trace region. When metal implants are located inside a field of view, they create a barrier to the transmitted X-ray beam due to the high attenuation of metals, which significantly degrades the image quality. To fill in the metal trace region efficiently, the proposed al...

Various metals of unknown function in the body (Cd, Cr, Hg, Pb, U), trace elements in excessive concentrations (Co, Cu, Fe, Zn), or metals used in cancer therapy (Pt, V), accumulate in the mammalian kidney, largely in the proximal tubule (PT) cells, and cause functional and structural damage that results in reabsorptive and secretory defects. The intracellular mechanisms of their toxicity in th...

In ruminants, even trace amounts of molybdenum can be lethal. areas with high pollution, levels in soil and mine tailings exceed 20,000 ppm. Bioremediation challenging when toxic copper is also present. This research presents a novel approach using dialysis tubing the molybdenum-reducing activity Bacillus sp. strain Neni-8 for removal from aqueous solutions. Molybdenum blue (Mo-blue), produced ...

facing the world today is the contamination of the environment by inorganic, organic, and organometallic species. One area of particular interest is the detection of heavy metals and metalloids in environmental matrices and the elucidation of their pathways through various environmental compartments (1–4). Ultimately, these toxic metals are incorporated into drinking water and various food chai...

To date, few studies have investigated the environmental legacy associated with industrialization in the South American Andes. Here, we present an environmental archive of industrial pollution from (210)Pb-dated lake cores recovered from Laguna Chipian, located near the Cerro de Pasco metallurgical region and Laguna Pirhuacocha, located near the Morococha mining region and the La Oroya smelting...

Zinc is an essential trace element involved in a wide range of biological processes and human diseases. Zinc excess is deleterious, and animals require mechanisms to protect against zinc toxicity. To identify genes that modulate zinc tolerance, we performed a forward genetic screen for Caenorhabditis elegans mutants that were resistant to zinc toxicity. Here we demonstrate that mutations of the...

Although manganese (Mn) is an essential trace element for human development and growth, chronic exposure to excessive Mn levels can result in psychiatric and motor disturbances, referred to as manganism. However, there are no known mechanism(s) for efflux of excess Mn from mammalian cells. Here, we test the hypothesis that the cytoplasmic iron (Fe) exporter ferroportin (Fpn) may also function a...