Stress Proteins as a Suitable Biomarker of Environmental Pollution

Abstract

Soils bacteria are frequently faced with various adverse environmental conditions and have developed a complex regulatory network to respond rapidly to environmental changes. In this study usefulness and applicability of stress proteins of bacteria which are produced after stress conditions were examined. The adaptation of soil bacteria involves the induction of stress proteins provide a nonspecific protective function regardless of stress types. Thus, biomarkers like bacteria can be used as an early warning system for pollutions. These proteins were extracted from soil’s bacteria of three different locations by usage of various kinds of buffers. Between these buffers, acidic sodium phosphate buffer gave highest yield of proteins, also Sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) was added to soil buffers as a powerful anionic detergent to denature more proteins by binding them. Then comparison between soil bacterial stress proteins and level of pollution according to distance from congested road were investigated by a quantitative comparison of total protein concentration which measured by Bradford’s protein test. The result of this assay indicated a direct relation between increase of pollution and the level of stress protein, also it was specified that the concentration of stress proteins have adverse relation to distance from xenobiotic induced stressors like traffic pollution. As a result stress proteins have high sensitivity to changes in the environment and determination of their amounts can be suggested as a specific biomarker of exposure for biomonitoring of pollution within an ecosystem and also could be useful point in ecotoxicological studies.