Soil Geobacteraceae are the key predictors of neurotoxic methylmercury bioaccumulation in rice

Zhong H 1 , Tang W 2 , Li Z 2 , Sonne C 3 , Lam SS 4 , Zhang X 2 Show all authors , Kwon SY 5 , Rinklebe J 6 , Nunes LM 7 , Yu RQ 8 , Gu B 9 , Hintelmann H 10 , Tsui MT 11 , Zhao J 12 , Zhou XQ 13 , Wu M 2 , Liu B 2 , Hao Y 13 , Chen L 14 , Zhang B 15 , Tan W 13 , Zhang XX 2 , Ren H 2 , Liu YR 16

Affiliations 

  • 1 School of the Environment, Nanjing University, State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, Nanjing, China. zhonghuan@nju.edu.cn
  • 2 School of the Environment, Nanjing University, State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, Nanjing, China
  • 3 Department of Ecoscience, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark. cs@bios.au.dk
  • 4 Higher Institution Centre of Excellence (HICoE), Institute of Tropical Aquaculture and Fisheries (AKUATROP), Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus, Malaysia
  • 5 Division of Environmental Science and Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, South Korea
  • 6 School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Institute of Foundation Engineering, Water and Waste Management, Laboratory of Soil and Groundwater Management, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
  • 7 Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability Center, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal
  • 8 Department of Biology, Center for Environment, Biodiversity and Conservation, The University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX, USA
  • 9 Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
  • 10 Department of Chemistry, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
  • 11 School of Life Sciences, Earth and Environmental Sciences Programme, Institute of Environment, Energy and Sustainability, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
  • 12 Department of Environmental Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
  • 13 National Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology and College of Resources and Environment, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China
  • 14 Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science (Ministry of Education), School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China. chenlong@geo.ecnu.edu.cn
  • 15 School of Water Resources and Environment, MOE Key Laboratory of Groundwater Circulation and Environmental Evolution, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing, China
  • 16 National Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology and College of Resources and Environment, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China. yrliu@mail.hzau.edu.cn
Nat Food, 2024 Apr;5(4):301-311.
PMID: 38605129 DOI: 10.1038/s43016-024-00954-7

Abstract

Contamination of rice by the potent neurotoxin methylmercury (MeHg) originates from microbe-mediated Hg methylation in soils. However, the high diversity of Hg methylating microorganisms in soils hinders the prediction of MeHg formation and challenges the mitigation of MeHg bioaccumulation via regulating soil microbiomes. Here we explored the roles of various cropland microbial communities in MeHg formation in the potentials leading to MeHg accumulation in rice and reveal that Geobacteraceae are the key predictors of MeHg bioaccumulation in paddy soil systems. We characterized Hg methylating microorganisms from 67 cropland ecosystems across 3,600 latitudinal kilometres. The simulations of a rice-paddy biogeochemical model show that MeHg accumulation in rice is 1.3-1.7-fold more sensitive to changes in the relative abundance of Geobacteraceae compared to Hg input, which is recognized as the primary parameter in controlling MeHg exposure. These findings open up a window to predict MeHg formation and accumulation in human food webs, enabling more efficient mitigation of risks to human health through regulations of key soil microbiomes.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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