P. UDAYA SRI AND JIKASMITA DALEI
Abstract
The microbial or enzymatic treatment of the effluents from textile industries, could help in reducing water pollution. In this present investigation, potential bacterial (S1 and S2) strains were isolated from textile industrial effluent and were selected on the basis of their ability to tolerate and degrade the selected azo dyes such as Methyl Red and Congo red at high concentration (1g/L) decolorization. The isolates were identified as B. brevis and B.pantothenticus based on their morphology, grams nature and biochemical tests. The percentage of MR degraded by B. brevis and B.pantothenticus were 59.8% and 91.6% respectively and thediazo-dye CR was degraded upto 75.3% by B.pantothenticus and remaining strains have shown negligible percentage of degradation. The Azoreductase enzyme responsible for azo dye degradation was isolated from MR and CR induced medium with B.pantothenticus culture. It was assayed and purified by ammonium salt precipitation, dialysis and anion exchange chromatography and its specific activities were estimated as 3.5 units and 4.61 units for MR and CR respectively per mg of total protein. The purity of enzyme was determined by SDS-PAGE and its molecular weight was approximated as 64KD.