Isolation and Characterization of a Molybdenum-reducing Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain KIK-12 in Soils from Nigeria with the Ability to grow on SDS

Abstract

The annual production of chemical toxins and organic pollutants has reached an alarming level. Their eradication from the environment is immensely needed, and bioremediation provides a better alternative for this task. In this study, the ability of molybdenum-reducing bacterium isolated from polluted soil to grow and reduce molybdenum on a variety of hydrocarbons and detergents was investigated. The bacterium was found to reduce molybdate to molybdenum blue at an optimum temperature between 25 and 34 oC, pH between 5.8 and 6.3, molybdate concentration between 30 and 50 mM and phosphate concentration between 5.0 and 7.5 mM.  The best electron donor hat support molybdate reduction was glucose, followed by sucrose, fructose, maltose, lactose, l-arabinose, d-mannose, mannitol and cellobiose in decreasing order. The absorption spectrum of the resultant Mo-blue was analogous to that of previous Mo-reducing bacterium and bear resemblance with reduced phosphomolybdate. At 2 ppm mercury (ii), copper (ii) and silver (i) molybdenum reduction was inhibited by 82.4, 61.9 and 47.50%, respectively. Based on the biochemical examination, the bacterium was tentatively identified as Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain KIK-12. The ability of this bacterium to degrade detergent and detoxify molybdenum makes it a vital tool for bioremediation