Detection, Identification and Characterization of Some Heavy Metals Tolerant Bacteria

Abstract

The threat of heavy metals pollution to public health and wildlife has led to an increased interest in developing systems that can remove or neutralize its toxic effects in industrial effluents and municipal wastewater. Tolerance to a range of heavy metal ions was determined for bacteria which had been isolated from wastewater collected from Makkah city, Saudi Arabia. Isolates were tolerant to cupper, cadmium, zinc, and cobalt although the levels of tolerance to the different concentrations of metal ions were specific for each isolate. One isolate was able to tolerate all four metal ions tested; phenotypic and genotypic investigation revealed that isolate (S7) resembled similarities with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The results of this study showed the potential applicability of the isolated heavy metal-tolerant strain Pseudomonas aeruginosa (S7) in the treatment of heavy metal containing solutions. Further studies on the genomic structure of isolate (S7) are required to investigate its capabilities to remove/reduce heavy metals in contaminated microcosms.