Impact of cadmium and nickel on ion homeostasis in the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe

Abstract Toxicity of heavy metals to living organisms is a worldwide research topic. Although, much has been discovered about cadmium and nickel impact on biological systems, a lot still remains unclear. We used inductively coupled plasma – optical emission spectroscopy to address the question of the effect of two different heavy metals nickel, and cadmium on intracellular ion balance. Increase or decrease of the content of several essential cations including Ca2+, Na+, K+, Mg2+, Cu2+, Fe3+ in the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe was determined. Our results revealed that the cell exposure to high nickel and cadmium concentrations led to significant elevation of Ca2+, Na+, Mg2+, Cu2+, Fe3+ levels in the yeast cell, while the content of K+ decreased. Correlation analyses showing in the presence of nickel and cadmium strong positive correlation among each tested element (Ca2+, Na+, Cu2+, Mg2+ and Fe3+) except for K+, demonstrate the significant impact of heavy metal treatment to ion homeostasis of the cell. Our data indicate that acute nickel and cadmium contamination leads to substantial ionome misbalance in yeast.