Martínez-Bussenius Cristóbal, Navarro Claudio A, Jerez Carlos A
Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Microb Biotechnol. 2017 Mar;10(2):279-295. doi: 10.1111/1751-7915.12450. Epub 2016 Oct 28.
Industrial biomining has been extensively used for many years to recover valuable metals such as copper, gold, uranium and others. Furthermore, microorganisms involved in these processes can also be used to bioremediate places contaminated with acid and metals. These uses are possible due to the great metal resistance that these extreme acidophilic microorganisms possess. In this review, the most recent findings related to copper resistance mechanisms of bacteria and archaea related to biohydrometallurgy are described. The recent search for novel metal resistance determinants is not only of scientific interest but also of industrial importance, as reflected by the genomic sequencing of microorganisms present in mining operations and the search of those bacteria with extreme metal resistance to improve the extraction processes used by the biomining companies.
工业生物采矿多年来已被广泛用于回收铜、金、铀等有价值的金属。此外，参与这些过程的微生物还可用于对受酸和金属污染的场所进行生物修复。由于这些极端嗜酸微生物具有很强的金属抗性，这些用途才得以实现。在本综述中，描述了与生物湿法冶金相关的细菌和古菌的铜抗性机制的最新研究结果。对新型金属抗性决定因素的最新探索不仅具有科学意义，而且具有工业重要性，采矿作业中存在的微生物的基因组测序以及对具有极端金属抗性的细菌的搜索以改进生物采矿公司使用的提取工艺就反映了这一点。
