Gene expression of the arsenic resistance operon in Chromobacterium violaceum ATCC 12472

Chromobacterium violaceum ATCC 12472 presents an arsRCB-type operon, which is involved in arsenic resistance. The regulating protein of this resistance system (ArsR) does not have the small conserved site (ELCVDCL) to link to the metalloid, as observed in Escherichia coli , and is thus considered to be an atypical ArsR protein, like that observed in Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans . In the present study, the gene expression profile of the ars operon under induction at different concentrations of arsenite — As(III) — was obtained via real-time PCR (TaqMan), by correlating the threshold cycle (Ct) values of induced and uninduced (control) samples. Through linear regression analysis (R2 = 0.9926), the gene expression profile of the ars operon showed clearly that the 0.125 μmol/L concentration of As(III) was sufficient to provoke a 4-fold increase in the resistance system, and a further increase in concentration resulted in an increase of up to 53-fold in transcription rates. The relation between resistance and induction of the ars operon indicates that the increased resistance to As(III) is associated with the increase in the number of transcripts.