Bacteria degrading both n-alkanes and aromatic hydrocarbons are prevalent in soils

Abstract

This study was undertaken to determine the distribution of soil bacteria capable of utilizing both n-alkanes and aromatic hydrocarbons. These microorganisms have not been comprehensively investigated so far. Ten contaminated (4046–43,861 mg of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) kg−1 of dry weight of soil) and five unpolluted (320–2754 mg TPH kg−1 of dry weight of soil) soil samples from temperate, arid, and Alpine soils were subjected to isolation of degraders with extended preferences and shotgun metagenomic sequencing (selected samples). The applied approach allowed to reveal that (a) these bacteria can be isolated from pristine and polluted soils, and (b) the distribution of alkane monooxygenase (alkB) and aromatic ring hydroxylating dioxygenases (ARHDs) encoding genes is not associated with the contamination presence. Some alkB and ARHD genes shared the same taxonomic affiliation; they were most often linked with the Rhodococcus, Pseudomonas, and Mycolicibacterium genera. Moreover, these taxa together with the Paeniglutamicibacter genus constituted the most numerous groups among 132 culturable strains growing in the presence of both n-alkanes and aromatic hydrocarbons. All those results indicate (a) the prevalence of the hydrocarbon degraders with extended preferences and (b) the potential of uncontaminated soil as a source of hydrocarbon degraders applied for bioremediation purposes.