SMITA CHAUDHRY, JYOTI LUHACH, POOJA MITTAL, HARSH PANWAR AND CHETAN SHARMA
Abstract
The ability of indigenous bacterial strains to utilize petroleum as the sole carbon and energy source was investigated in this study. Twenty morphologically and biochemically different bacterial species were isolated from oil and sludge contaminated site. Of these eight isolates were found to be bacilli. Further molecular characterization of the isolates was done by genus specific PCR using primers targeting 16SrRNA. Three Bacillus isolates showed best growth with 1% (v/v) diesel and mineral salt medium in shake flask culture, comparable to that of known standard strains of Pseudomonas and Serratia sps. Also, high population growth, increase in optical density, increase in protein concentration and decrease in pH during the incubation period suggests diesel mineralizing ability of these three isolates. It can hence be concluded that the three isolated Bacillus strains have good potential for surfactant production and thereby ability to utilize hydrocarbons as carbon and energy source.