Corn industry subproducts for biomass production of an atrazine degrading bacterial consortium

CALABRÓ LÓPEZ, A.; BUSTO, V.D.; CUADRADO, V.; GIULIETTI, A. M.

Puerto Madryn (Chubut)

Congreso; XLVI Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigaciones en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (S.A.I.B.); 2010

Sociedad Argentina de Investigaciones en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (S.A.I.B.)

Bioremediation is a well known tool used to degrade or transform contaminants. Bioremediation processes can be carried out both by biostimulation and/or bioaugmentation. The last process consist in the introduction of specific competent degrading strains or consortia of microorganisms. In a previous work, in order to produce high biomass concentration of an atrazine atrazine degrading bacterial consortium, traditional carbon sources as glucose or citrate were used. Furthermore, water of maceration (MA) and syrups mixture (SM) are low cost corn industry subproducts that represent an economical alternative for cultivation of these microorganisms. The aim of this work was to study the biomass production of an atrazine degrading bacterial consortium isolated from soils of the Argentinean Humid Pampa using these subproducts as carbon and energy source. Shake flasks experiments using factorial design were carried out in 250 ml Erlenmeyer flasks using atrazine as nitrogen source and MA or SM as carbon and energy source. Biomass production and atrazine consumption were monitored over time. SM was able to replace traditional carbon sources in culture media for support consortium growth and maintain atrazine degrading capacity, being a potential substrate for biomass production useful for bioaugmentation processes.