Indium has no known biological role and few reports of microbial interactions with indium have been published. Indium detoxification in Pseudomonas fluorescens grown on citrate complexed with indium occurred by precipitation of indium in an insoluble complex with phosphate (Anderson and Appanna,1993). Indium is efficiently accumulated and retained by Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria (Ardehali and Mohammad, 1993). Isolated cell walls of Bacillus subtilis have been shown to bind soluble indium with high affinity (Beveridge, 1978). Methylated indium compounds are stable in aqueous media, but biomethylation of indium has not been demonstrated (reviewed by Thayer, 2002).

For more information:

Search Medline for indium metabolism AND bacteria

Anderson S and Appanna VD. Indium detoxification in Pseudomonas fluorescens. Environ Poll. 1993;82:33-37.

Thayer JS. Biological methylation of less-studied elements. Appl Organometal Chem. 2002;16:677-91.