Bacterial communities in uranium mining waste piles and their interaction with heavy metals

High diversity and significant differences were found in the structures of bacterial communities present in several U mill tailings and U mining waste piles. Many bacterial strains were successfully cultured from those uranium wastes, most of which are unusually effective in different biotransformations of U. The molecular basis for the selective and reversible binding of U and some other toxic metals by one of the natural bacterial isolates was found to be a novel kind of S-layer protein. Our analysis indicates that uranium wastes are a valuable reservoir for unusual microorganisms prospective for bacteria-based bioremediation.