Metagenomics analysis reveals a new metallothionein family: Sequence and metal-binding features of new environmental cysteine-rich proteins

Environmental cysteine-rich protein encoding genes were previously isolated from soil metatranscriptomes. They confer Cd-tolerance and some of them Zn-tolerance in yeast. The analysis of the corresponding proteins with respect to their amino acid sequence features and their metal-binding abilities reveals that they belong to a new family of metallothioneins.206