The tellurite-reducing bacterium from a culture of the toxic dinoflagellate .

The strain 2328 was isolated from a clonal culture of the toxic dinoflagellate . The strain exhibits a resistance to high KTeO concentrations (2500 μg/mL). A study of the growth dynamics of the strain exposed to KTeO has shown a longer lag phase and a reduced stationary phase compared to those during cultivation with no toxicant. The fatty acids profile is dominated by 16:1 (n-7), 16:0, 17:1, 15:0, 18:1 (n-7), and 17:0. The 2328 strain belongs to the Gammaproteobacteria and is related to the genus with 99-100% sequence similarity to some intra-genome allele variants (paralogues) of 16S rRNA from A phylogenetic reconstruction (ML and NJ), based on amino acid sequences, has revealed that the analyzed 2328 strain forms a common cluster with strains. In the presented work, the ability of to reduce potassium tellurite to elemental tellurium has been recorded for the first time. Bacteria reduce potassium tellurite to Te (0), nanoparticles of which become distributed diffusely and in the form of electron-dense globules in cytoplasm. Large polymorphous metalloid crystals are formed in the extracellular space. Such feature of the strain 2328 makes it quite attractive for biotechnological application as an organism concentrating the rare metalloid.