Abstract
The effect of seven important pollutants and three representative organic solvents on growth of Thauera aromatica K172, as reference strain for nitrate-reducing anaerobic bacteria, was investigated. Toxicity in form of the effective concentrations (EC50) that led to 50% growth inhibition of potential organic pollutants such as BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene), chlorinated phenols and aliphatic alcohols on cells was tested under various anaerobic conditions. Similar results were obtained for Geobacter sulfurreducens and Desulfococcus multivorans as representative for Fe3+-reducing and sulphate-reducing bacteria, respectively, leading to a conclusion that anaerobic bacteria are far more sensitive to organic pollutants than aerobic ones. Like for previous studies for aerobic bacteria, yeast and animal cell cultures, a correlation between toxicity and hydrophobicity (log P values) of organic compounds for different anaerobic bacteria was ascertained. However, compared to aerobic bacteria, all three tested anaerobic bacteria were shown to be about three times more sensitive to the tested substances.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Contract no. 003998 (GOCE) of the European Commission within its Sixth Framework Program project BIOTOOL. We would like to thank the excellent technical support of Julia Gäbel.
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Duldhardt, I., Nijenhuis, I., Schauer, F. et al. Anaerobically grown Thauera aromatica, Desulfococcus multivorans, Geobacter sulfurreducens are more sensitive towards organic solvents than aerobic bacteria. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 77, 705–711 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-007-1179-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-007-1179-2