Environ. Sci. Technol. 2010, 44, 4705–4709
U(VI) Reduction to Mononuclear U(IV) by Desulfitobacterium Species KELLY E. FLETCHER,† MAXIM I. BOYANOV,§ SARA H. THOMAS,† QINGZHONG WU,† KENNETH M. KEMNER,§ AND ¨ F F L E R * ,†,‡,| FRANK E. LO School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 311 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, and Biosciences Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439
Received December 1, 2009. Revised manuscript received April 4, 2010. Accepted April 22, 2010.
The bioreduction of U(VI) to U(IV) affects uranium mobility and fate in contaminated subsurface environments and is best understood in Gram-negative model organisms such as Geobacter and Shewanella spp. This study demonstrates that U(VI) reduction is a common trait of Gram-positive Desulfitobacterium spp. Five different Desulfitobacterium isolates reduced 100 µM U(VI) to U(IV) in
