The effects of tungstophosphate and tungstosilicate on various stress promoters transformed in Escherichia coli.

Although tungsten is an important material in some industrial and chemical processes, the biological and biochemical effects, including the toxicity, of tungsten compounds are not known well. In this study, a reporter gene assay using special strains of Escherichia coli was performed to investigate the mode of action of two polyoxotungstates, i.e. undecatungstophosphate (PW(11)) and undecatungstosilicate (SiW(11)). When the bacterial cells were cultured with PW(11), osmY (a stress promoter gene sensitive to osmotic signals) was induced to some extent, while other stress promoters were expressed only slightly. SiW(11) gave similar results, but clpB (an analogue of human heat shock protein) was more strongly induced. It is possible that PW(11) and SiW(11) can produce an osmotic signal at lower concentrations without increasing ionic strength. Since the constituents of PW(11)/SiW(11) (i.e. HPO(4)(2-), SiO(3)(2-), WO(4)(2-)) showed almost no effect, a chemical feature unique to PW(11)/SiW(11) and originating from neither of their constituents, i.e. a polyanionic characteristic, may play an important role in their biological effects.