Table 2.

Strains used in this study

Strains	Genotype and description	Reference or source
E. coli BL21	E. coli B F- dcm ompT hsdS(rB- mB-) gal [malB+]K-12(λS)	Invitrogen
PET30a	E. coli BL21/ PET30a , T7 promoter, f1 origin, Kmr	Novagen, Inc.
HMT	E. coli BL21/PET30a;hmt (human metallothionein)	[26]
MMT	E. coli BL21/PET30a;mmt (mouse metallothionein)	[26]
TMT	E. coli BL21/PET30a;tmt (tilapia metallothionein)	[26]
OmpC	E. coli BL21/PET30a;ompC (E. coli outer membrane protein C)	[26]
OmpC-HMT	E. coli BL21/PET30a;ompC-hmt	[26]
OmpC-MMT	E. coli BL21/PET30a;ompC-mmt	[26]
OmpC-TMT	E. coli BL21/PET30a;ompC-tmt	[26]