Mercuric reductase activity in the adaptation to cationic mercury, phenyl mercuric acetate and multiple antibiotics of a gram-negative population isolated from an aerobic fixed-bed reactor.

Eighty-eight strains, isolated from an aerobic fixed-bed reactor and identified to the genus level, were examined for resistance to 21 antibiotics, cationic mercury and phenylmercuric acetate. All except three were able to grow on Mueller-Hinton agar plates containing 8 micrograms/ml mercuric chloride, but only 42 exhibited a mercuric reductase and an organomercurial lyase activity. Furthermore, 82 of them were multiply-antibiotic resistant, whereas no positive correlation between this property and cationic mercury volatilization capacity was found. It was concluded that this bacterial community-adapted response to these selective agents, which has been most often shown to be mediated by R plasmids, was the result of two independent phenomena. Moreover, the high percentage of multiple antibiotic and mercury resistance found in this population suggested that simultaneous selections occurred on filters of bacteria which exhibited mucoid colonies and tolerance to these two categories of stress agents.