Seema Sambrani, Bharat Shinde and Shailesh Dave
Department of Biotechnology, Fergusson College, Pune, India
The activation of natural degradation potentials in environment is currently the challenge in environmental research addressed to remediation methods. Presence of hydrocarbons often inhibits survival and biodegradation capabilities of the responsible organisms. The aim of the work is to check the feasibility of oil degradation in water using bioagumentation strategy based on the use of the microbial formula tailored with selected native strain. The prepared formula consists of five bacterial strains having multiple solvents resistance. Lipase activity was assayed by Kwon and Rhee method. The maximum lipase production was observed under aerobic conditions, the microaerobic condition also showed comparable results. Lipase enzymes were partially purified and its molecular weight was determined by SDSPAGE. 16S rDNA sequence analysis by NCBI-BLAST identified four isolates to be Bacillus species and one Pseudomonas species. Their lipolytic ability in the presence of different temperature, pH, natural oils, synthetic oils, organic carbon, inorganic carbon, nitrogen, surfactants and metal ions was investigated. Indeed this tailored microbial formula efficiently facilitates the breakdown of oils and the solvents in an ecofriendly way. The results of LCMS Analysis are interesting. Till date there are reports of organic solvent tolerant lipases used for bioremediation but very few reports on bioaugmentation.
Keywords: Bioremediation, Bioagumentation, oil degrading Bacilli, lipases, solvent tolerance