Methylation of arsenic by anaerobic microbial consortia isolated from lake sediment

Abstract

Abstract Anaerobic enrichment cultures, isolated from arsenic–contaminated lake sediment in the Canadian sub–arctic and grown in five selective media, methylated arsenate/arsenite to produce mono−, di− and tri–methyl arsenicals. The extent of methylation and methylarsenic species produced varied with the type of enrichment. Iron–reducing, manganese–reducing, sulfate–reducing and broad–spectrum anaerobic heterotrophic mixed cultures all produced methylarsenicals. Sulfate–reducing cultures produced higher concentrations of methylarsenicals (especially trimethyl species) than iron‐ or maganese–reducers. There is evidence that several of the methylarsenicals, which were hydride–reactive at pH 6, were methylarsenic(III) thiols. The organoarsenicals produced by enrichment cultures were the same as those detected in the porewater of the lake sediments used to initiate the enrichment cultures. Overall, this study demonstrates that microbes from anaerobic lake sediments can methylate (and demethylate) arsenic, a capability shared by manganese−, iron−, and sulfate–reducing microbial consortia.