నైరూప్య

Halotolerant Bacterial Consortium able to Degrade Substituted Phenolic Compounds Isolated from Saline Environment.

Ashwini Murthy and Krishnaswamy Veena Gayathri*

Phenolic compounds are considered to be toxic compounds produced from many industrial effluents. Presence of these recalcitrant compounds in the environment posses significant health risks to humans. The substituted phenolic compounds are carcinogenic and toxic environmental pollutants which are massively discharged into the environment from anthropogenic activities. This present work focuses on the degradation of different concentrations of substituted phenolic compounds by the halotolerant bacterial consortium isolated from a saline environment. The isolated halotolerant bacterial consortium was able to grow from a primary phenolic compound like catechol to a most recalcitrant compound 2,4,6-trichlorophenol. The result showed that the moderately halotolerant bacterial consortium was able to utilize up to 250 mg/L of Catechol (55%) to 2,4,6- TCP (77%) , respectively. The isolated bacterial consortium consisted of three bacterial strains which co-existed during degradation. The16s rRNA sequencing results showed that the bacterial strains were Exiguobacterium arabatum strain YCY17 (AS1), Bacillus cereus strain I50 (AS2), and Bacillus pumilus MM15 (AS3). Such isolated bacterial consortium would be of great importance in the treatment of wastewater containing chlorophenols in the presence of salt content.