STUDY OF A BACTERIAL DEFINED CONSORTIUM ADAPTED TO LOW PHENANTHRENE BIOAVAILABILITY

LOPEZ, ANA MARIA; MEDINA, ROCIO; DOLCETTI, FRANCO JUAN CRUZ; BOSCH, ALEJANDRA; YANTORNO, OSVALDO M; DEL PANNO, MARÍA TERESA

Mar del Plata

Congreso; X Congreso Argentino de Microbiología General- SAMIGE; 2014

Asociacion Civil de Microbiologia General

A general problem of bioremediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) contaminated soil is that the degradation appears rather slow, due to the propensity of these nonpolar contaminants to adsorb strongly to organic matter. The establishment of microniches of PAH degrading bacteria in an aged PAH contaminated soil represents a process strongly influenced by the manner in which the PAH are exposure in the soil and bacterial capability to develop physiological strategies to adapt to the PAH bioavailability. Due to the reduced bioavailability, the bioaugmentation strategy with cultures obtained by enrichment in solid phase systems, could be a promising strategy to apply in aged contaminated soils. Applying an enrichment method with the phenanthrene provided in a sorbed state, a degrading consortia was previously obtained. The predominant strains from the consortia were isolated and identified as belonging to Sphingobium, Acidovorax, Rhodococcus and Arthrobacter genera (strains C1, C2, C3 and C4, respectively) suggesting that the strains could develop different strategies to integrate the degrader consortium. Because the successful of survival and establishment of a consortium in soil is probably higher than those obtained with the inoculation of only one strain, we focussed our study in understanding how a defined consortium built by these four strains could be more efficient in reducing sorbed phenanthene than pure cultures