Biodegradation of endosulfan by mixed bacteria culture strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus

Abstract

Endosulfan is a synthetic cyclodiene non-systemic insecticide and acaricide with both contact and stomach activity. Microorganisms play a key role in removal of xenobiotics like endosulfan from the contaminanted sites because of their dynamic, complex, and complicated enzymatic systems which degrade these chemical. In this study, endosulfan was degraded by indigenous bacteria strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. The biodegradation process was carried out according to the method established by Buff et al., 1992. The results obtained showed that the bacterial strains efficiently degraded endosulfan by consuming more than 90 % of 40 mg/l of the minimal media within 7 days of incubation. Maximum biodegration by these two selected bacterial stains was observed at an initial pH of 8.0 at an incubation temperature of 30 °C. The findings from present study suggest that these bacterial strains could be potentially promising as a low cost effective technology in the biodegradation of endosulfan from the environment.

Keywords: Endosulfan, Microoganisms, Biodegradation, Contamination and Soil