SEDL / STP / STP802-EB / STP33521S

Effect of Cadmium on Lake Water Bacteria as Determined by the Luciferase Assay of Adenosine Triphosphate

Seyfried, PL
Associate professor and graduate student, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.

Horgan, CBL
Associate professor and graduate student, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.

Pages: 17    Published: Jan 1983

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Abstract

A firefly luciferase assay of bacterial adenosine triphosphate (ATP) was developed to measure the toxic effects of cadmium ions on aquatic organisms. Toxicity was monitored using intracellular (I/C) ATP (in micrograms per litre) as well as plate counts (colony-forming units per millilitre). The bacteria, which belonged mainly to the families Enterobacteriaceae and Pseudomonadaceae, exhibited varying degrees of resistance to up to 100 ppm cadmium when grown in a glucose-salts medium at pH 6.8. Among the organisms tested, cadmium resistance decreased in the following order: Pseudomonas vesicularis > P. aeruginosa > Enterobacter sp. > P. fluorescens > Chromobacter sp. > Serratia sp. A rise in the pH of the growth medium from 5 to 7 resulted in increased toxicity of cadmium.