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.

中文翻译：

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镉和镍对酵母裂殖酵母中离子稳态的影响。

重金属对生物的毒性是世界范围内的研究课题。尽管已经发现了许多关于镉和镍对生物系统影响的信息，但仍然有很多不清楚的地方。我们使用电感耦合等离子体发射光谱法解决了两种不同的重金属镍和镉对细胞内离子平衡的影响的问题。确定了酵母裂殖酵母中几种必需阳离子（包括Ca2 +，Na +，K +，Mg2 +，Cu2 +，Fe3 +）含量的增加或减少。我们的结果表明，细胞暴露于高浓度的镍和镉导致酵母细胞中Ca2 +，Na +，Mg2 +，Cu2 +，Fe3 +含量显着升高，而K +含量降低。关联分析显示，除了K +外，在存在镍和镉的情况下，每个受测试元素（Ca2 +，Na +，Cu2 +，Mg2 +和Fe3 +）之间都有很强的正相关关系，表明重金属处理对细胞离子稳态具有显着影响。我们的数据表明，镍和镉的急性污染会导致酵母中大量的离子组失衡。