Streptomyces from Soils Contaminated with Boron Compounds

Abstract

Boron (B) is a metalloid studied widely mainly because of its pharmacological, industrial and agrochemical properties. Its importance, both as a nutrient for the growth of some plants (Warington 1923) and an essential element in plant structure and cell walls, has long being known (O’Neill et al. 2004). Evidence suggests that some animals and unicellular eukaryotes including humans (Nielsen 2000) also require boron, but the concentrations needed vary widely according to the species. Cyanide bacteria (Mateo et al. 1986) and Bacillus boroniphilus sp. nov. (Ahmed et al. 2007a) are the only bacteria in which boron has been determined to be essential for growth...