Microbial degradation of high molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Juhasz, Albert (1998) Microbial degradation of high molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. PhD thesis, Victoria University of Technology.

Abstract

The bacterial degradation of high molecular weight PAHs was investigated by isolating communities and individual strains from a PAH-contaminated site. Microbiological analysis of soils from Port Melbourne, Australia, resulted in the enrichment of five microbial communities capable of degrading pyrene as a sole carbon and energy source. Communities four and five degraded a number of PAH compounds including fluorene, phenanthrene, pyrene and dibenz[a,h]anthracene. Three pure cultures were isolated from community five using a spray plate method with pyrene as the sole carbon source. The cultures were identified as strains of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia on the basis of multiple sequence alignment analysis of 16SrRNA gene sequences. Differentiation of the three strains was possible by pulse field gel electrophoresis and DNA:DNA hybridisation methods. The St. maltophilia strains had similar degradative profiles to community five.

Item type Thesis (PhD thesis)
URI https://vuir.vu.edu.au/id/eprint/15338
Subjects Historical > FOR Classification > 0907 Environmental Engineering
Historical > Faculty/School/Research Centre/Department > School of Engineering and Science
Keywords Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, Biodegradation, soil remediation, soil analysis, soil pollution
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