Revealing Heavy Metal Resistances in the Yanomami Microbiome

BACKGROUND The Amazon hosts invaluable and unique biodiversity as well as mineral resources. As a consequence, there are large illegal and artisanal gold mining areas in indigenous territories. Mercury has been used in gold mining, and some are released into the environment and atmosphere, primarily affecting indigenous as the Yanomami. In addition, other heavy metals have been associated with gold mining and other metal-dispersing activities in the region. OBJECTIVE Investigation of the Yanomami gut microbiome focusing on metal resistance. METHODS Metagenomic data from the Yanomami gut microbiome were assembled into contigs, and their putative proteins were matched to a database of metal resistance proteins. FINDINGS Most identified proteins have the potential to confer resistance to multiple metals (two or more), followed by mercury, copper, zinc, chromium, arsenic, and others. Operons with potential resistance to mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel, zinc, copper, copper/silver, and cobalt/nickel were identified. Mercury resistance operon was the most abundant, even though a diversity of operons in the Yanomami microbiome was observed to have the potential to confer resistance to various metals CONCLUSION The Yanomami gut microbiome gene composition shows that these people have been exposed directly or indirectly to mercury and other heavy metals. Sponsorships This study was partly financed by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ); and PAEF (IOC-023-FIO-18-2-47).