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Seawater primary resource

Naturally occurring marine saline water considered as a dissolved-material extraction feed. It is a variable aqueous resource, distinct from elemental uranium, a mineral species, a manufactured salt product and desalination concentrate. The curated study used natural seawater in a laboratory dialysis experiment with nutrient-supported bacterial growth. Its composition and response do not define all seawater. No criticality designation or external material identifier is inferred from its constituents.

Microbial & Biochemical Mechanisms (1)

UUS-1 cell-associated uranium immobilization in natural seawater

biosorption Microbial

Associated Organisms: Bacillus velezensis (NCBITaxon:492670)

Growing Bacillus velezensis UUS-1 in a nutrient-containing dialysis tube was associated with declining uranium in the surrounding natural seawater and uranium measured in harvested cells. This supports cell-associated immobilization under the laboratory protocol. Biosorption is a broad process label here: adsorption, intracellular accumulation and other contributions were not quantitatively partitioned in this natural-water arm. Separate spiked-media and cell-debris experiments suggest involvement of carboxyl- and amino-containing material, without establishing a specific protein or a unique in situ uptake pathway. An isolated uranium product, regeneration performance and industrial deployment were not demonstrated.

Experimental Context & Analytical Limits:
Section 4 describes 10 microlitres of exponential-phase UUS-1 culture in a 3 kDa dialysis tube with 1 mL seawater, 25 mg tryptone and 15 mg yeast extract, immersed in 1 L natural seawater at 30 degrees C with moderate shaking for 48 h; three independent experiments. No uranium addition is described for this arm. External-water uranium was measured by ICP-MS every 12 h, viable cells by dilution counting, and harvested cells by ICP-MS at 48 h. Figure 6b plots declining water uranium and increasing bacterial numbers; Section 2.5 reports 24.33% immobilization and 213.89 +/- 9.01 mg U/kg final dry bacterial cells. These are reported assay outcomes, not an independently closed mass balance or product yield. The tube volume increased during growth. Figure 6e provides a no-UUS-1 tube comparison for surface fouling, but Figure 6b does not display a matched no-cell uranium time course. Nutrient uranium blanks, membrane sorption, cellular washing/digestion details and final uranium partition among all compartments are not resolved in the inspected methods. Natural seawater sampling location/date and assay pH are not specified; the pH 7.2 spiked-medium and pH 7.0 cell/debris protocols are separate. Section 2.1 identifies beach sand from Haikou as the strain isolation source, whereas the WGS submission says seawater from Haikou. That provenance discrepancy does not identify the assay-water collection site.
Curated Evidence Points:
Section 2.5, Figure 6a-c and the final Section 4 method establish the natural-water dialysis treatment, cell growth, water uranium depletion and harvested-cell uranium. These observations support a qualified laboratory immobilization claim for this strain and nutrient-supported protocol, without generalizing to seawater-wide performance or uranium product recovery.
Sections 2.2-2.3 and Figures 2-4 concern uranium-spiked LB/seawater broth or simulated seawater and prepared cell debris. Group shielding and proteinase treatment change adsorption, but do not identify an individual binding protein; loss of biomass during proteinase treatment complicates attribution. XPS is interpreted by the authors as retained U(VI), not evidence of U(VI)-to-U(IV) reduction. These supporting assays do not directly establish the molecular mechanism in unspiked natural seawater. Genome cluster predictions and reduced surface fouling do not establish which antimicrobial compound caused the observed effect.
Table S2 distinguishes final wet cells, final dry cells and initial culture normalization; its seawater U cell is 3.10 micrograms/kg, despite the general mg/kg header. The reported 9.46 +/- 0.39 mg U/g initial cultures and 6.26 x 10^5 concentration ratio in Section 2.5 must not be relabeled as final-biomass capacity. The initial-culture U concentration 9456.59 mg/kg divided by 0.00310 mg/kg seawater does not reproduce the tabulated ratio 625746.40. Initial biomass/media accounting is unresolved, so neither headline quantity is accepted as a comparable performance metric. Table S2 also cannot assign other accumulated elements uniquely to seawater rather than added nutrients. No structured concentration observations are curated.
The current GenBank record retains version MK092976.1 and explicitly identifies UUS-1 and taxon 492670, consistent with the study's 16S-based attribution and Figure S2. This grounds the reported strain attribution without independently repeating species delimitation.
Context_only Source: snva00000000
The WGS master record explicitly identifies strain UUS-1, taxon 492670 and 34 component sequences. Its isolation-source qualifier differs from the paper's beach-sand description; a genome accession does not independently establish metal uptake or metabolite production.

Sources & References

  1. yuan2019: Yuan, Yu, Yang, Wen, Guo, Wang and Wang (2019). Ultrafast Recovery of Uranium from Seawater by Bacillus velezensis Strain UUS-1 with Innate Anti-Biofouling Activity. Advanced Science 6(18):1900961; DOI 10.1002/advs.201900961. Full published XML, Sections 2.1-2.5 and 4, Figures 2-6; PMC6755527, PMID 31559134.
    https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.201900961 (accessed 2026-10-15)
  2. yuan2019_si: Supporting Information to Yuan et al. (2019), DOI 10.1002/advs.201900961; nine-page ADVS-6-1900961-s001.pdf from EuropePMC supplementaryFiles. Figure S2 (p. 4), Table S1 (p. 8), Table S2 (p. 9).
    https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC6755527/supplementaryFiles (accessed 2026-10-15)
  3. ncbi492670: NCBI Taxonomy 492670, Bacillus velezensis, species; current authority checked 2026-10-15. Species identifier does not identify strain UUS-1.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=492670&mode=info (accessed 2026-10-15)
  4. mk092976: GenBank MK092976.1, Bacillus velezensis strain UUS-1 partial 16S ribosomal RNA gene, 1533 bp; version and strain qualifier verified 2026-10-15.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MK092976.1 (accessed 2026-10-15)
  5. snva00000000: GenBank SNVA00000000.1, Bacillus velezensis strain UUS-1 whole-genome shotgun project, version 01 comprising SNVA01000001-SNVA01000034; source qualifiers checked 2026-10-15.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/SNVA00000000.1 (accessed 2026-10-15)

Curation History

Timestamp Curator Action Summary
2026-10-15T18:30:36Z codex (GPT-6; codex) CREATE Curated the seawater resource identity and qualified laboratory UUS-1 uranium immobilization from the full primary article and supplement. Preserved assay boundaries, initial-culture accounting uncertainty, strain-source discrepancy, controls and deployment limitations.

Record source: data/records/seawater.yaml