Abstract
BackgroundWith the high demand for diesel across the world, environmental decontamination from its improper usage, storage and accidental spills becomes necessary. One highly environmentally friendly and cost-effective decontamination method is to utilize diesel-degrading microbes as a means for bioremediation. Here, we present a newly isolated and identified strain of Acinetobacter calcoaceticus (‘CA16’) as a candidate for the bioremediation of diesel-contaminated areas.ResultsAcinetobacter calcoaceticus CA16 was able to survive and grow in minimal medium with diesel as the only source of carbon. We determined through metabolomics that A. calcoaceticus CA16 appears to be efficient at diesel degradation. Specifically, CA16 is able to degrade 82 to 92% of aliphatic alkane hydrocarbons (CnHn + 2; where n = 12–18) in 28 days. Several diesel-degrading genes (such as alkM and xcpR) that are present in other microbes were also found to be activated in CA16.ConclusionsThe results presented here suggest that Acinetobacter strain CA16 has good potential in the bioremediation of diesel-polluted environments.
Highlights
With the high demand for diesel across the world, environmental decontamination from its improper usage, storage and accidental spills becomes necessary
In addition to diesel degradation, our preliminary analyses indicate that Acinetobacter calcoaceticus CA16 (CA16) is capable of nitrogen fixation, phosphate and potassium solubilization, and utilizing lignin as a sole carbon source
To understand the gene expression levels produced in A. calcoaceticus CA16 during the diesel degradation process, we studied selected genes that are involved in hydrocarbon degradation (Table 1)
Summary
With the high demand for diesel across the world, environmental decontamination from its improper usage, storage and accidental spills becomes necessary. A very complex mixture of hydrocarbons (e.g. aliphatics, aromatics, alcohols), and its byproducts, are known soil contaminants and are phytotoxic to a wide variety of plants [1, 2]. Diesel degradation by microorganisms varies and depends highly on the microbe’s ability to utilize the hydrocarbon components or (by) products of diesel degradation [8, 9] Some microbes, such as Alcanivorax borkumensis, which is often considered the main diesel degrader, can degrade various n-alkanes that are present in diesel [6, 10,11,12]. It is important to study a variety of microbes, and even those with overlapping or repetitive abilities in terms of degradation may hold different values in different situations depending on soil characteristics and other prevailing environmental factors
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