Roles of cation efflux pump in biomineralization of cadmium into quantum dots in Escherichia coli.

Cadmium (Cd) is a typical and widely present toxic heavy metals in environments. Biomineralization of Cd ions could alleviate the toxicity and produce valuable products in certain waste streams containing selenite. However, the impact of the intrinsic Cd(II) efflux system on the biotransformation process remains unrevealed. In this work, the significance of the efflux system on Cd biomineralization was evaluated by constructing engineered Escherichia coli strains, including ΔzntA with suppressed Cd(II) efflux system and pYYDT-zntA with strengthened Cd(II) efflux system. Compared to the wild type (WT), 20% more Cd ions were accumulated in ΔzntA and 17% less were observed in pYYDT-zntA in the presence of selenite as determined by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometer. Through combination with X-ray absorption fine structure analysis, it was discovered that 50% higher production of CdSxSe1-x quantum dots (QDs) was achieved in the ΔzntA cells than that in the WT cells. Moreover, the ΔzntA cells exhibited the same viability as the WT cells and the pYYDT-zntA cells because accumulated Cd ions were transformed into biocompatible QDs. In addition, the biosynthesized QDs had a uniform particle size (3.82 ± 0.53 nm) and a long fluorescence lifetime (45.6 ns), which could potentially be utilized for bio-imaging. These results not only elucidate the significance of Cd(II) efflux system in the biotransformation of Cd ions and selenite, but also provide a promising way to recover Cd and Se as valuable products in certain waste streams.