Talk:Mercury(II) reductase

wrong reaction?
In enzymology, a mercury(II) reductase is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction
 * Hg + NADP+ + H+ $$\rightleftharpoons$$ Hg2+ + NADPH

206.212.30.207 wrote "(Please explain. This is not the reaction listed in either of the papers you cite.)" --Rajah (talk) 17:22, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't the reaction be reversed, as the reaction direction should indicate that mercury is being reduced to it's elemental form: Hg2+ + NADPH ↔ Hg0 + NADP+ + H+? I know this is a reversible reaction, but under cellular and standard conditions, the reaction will go to the right when read this way, as is convention. To be even more correct, the following should be used to indicate that the enzyme's cysteine sulfides play a role in the reaction: NADPH + RS-Hg-SR + H+ ↔ NADP+ Hg) + 2RSH (from Fox & Walsh, J Biol Chem 1981).--Swhite92 (talk) 17:40, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Usage of this enzyme by organisms
The article is quite ok, but what I would like to see is that it can be more specific, in regards to which organisms use this enzyme.

Right now it reads this:

"Mercury(II) reductase is found in the cytoplasm of many eubacteria[1] in both aerobic and anaerobic environments"

But this does not give us a lot of information. In the long run it would be nice if someone from a microbial ecology background could extend this a little - just to see which organisms may need this. I assume it's mostly bacteria but perhaps archaea too? What differences may then be a consequence of this? 2A02:8388:1602:6D80:C080:419D:679D:C9F8 (talk) 21:59, 4 March 2021 (UTC)