The mechanism of cadmium resistance of a yeast strain Rhodotorula sp. Y11 isolated from mine soil was investigated. We found that the yeast cells treated with different methods showed different cadmium-adsorption models. Grown in medium supplied with 100 mg/L of cadmium, 3.29% of the cell-absorbed cadmium was accounted in the cytoplasm. However, only 1% was taken into the cytoplasm and 99% was bound to the cell wall using the lyophilized biomass to adsorb cadmium in double distilled water. Treatments with alkali, ethanol-chloroform and proteinase showed different influences on the biosorption of whole cells and isolated cell walls. FT-IR analysis showed that acetyl of chitin was the active compound in the cells to absorb cadmium. The production of Metallothioneins, proteins related to the resistance to heavy metal in yeast, was evidently induced by cadmium, achieving 638.8 μg/g wet weight, which was about 85 folds higher than that in the uninduced biomass and was also much higher than that reported previously. The molecular weight of Metallothioneins was 6500 Da estimated by SDS-PAGE.
YUAN Hongli, LI Zhijian, WANG Nengfei & HUANG Huaizeng College of Biological Sciences, Key Laboratory of Agro-Microbial Resource and Application, Ministry of Agriculture, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100094, China
