Copper is among the most common metals in biological systems, yet elevated copper ion levels are toxic to microorganisms and higher organisms. Cells have developed highly conserved mechanisms and divergent strategies to reduce the deleterious effects of excess copper in the cell. It is known that copper induces the production of an extracellular protein with affinity for copper in a common marine bacterium, Vibrio alginolyticus. This project examines two hypotheses: (1) copper-binding protein induction is a specific response to elevated metal levels and (2) the microbial metal- binding proteins contribute significantly to regulation of the levels of bio-available copper in the ocean. Dr. Harwood will clone the copper-binding protein gene, which encodes the copper- induced, copper-binding protein. An oligonucleotide probe specific to the copper-binding protein will be developed and tested with natural populations of marine microbes in order to determine the efficacy of copper-binding protein probes for detecting the gene sequene and gene expression in natural waters.
