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The presence of melanoidins in molasses wastewater leads to water pollution both due to its dark brown color and its COD contents. In this study, a bacterial consortium isolated from waterfall sediment was tested for its decolorization. The identification of culturable bacteria by 16S rDNA based approach showed that the consortium composed of Klebsiella oxytoca, Serratia mercescens, Citrobacter sp. and unknown bacterium. In the context of academic study, prevention on the difficulties of providing effluent as well as its variations in compositions, several synthetic media prepared with respect to color and COD contents based on analysis of molasses wastewater, i.e., Viandox sauce (13.5% v/v), caramel (30% w/v), beet molasses wastewater (41.5% v/v) and sugarcane molasses wastewater (20% v/v) were used for decolorization using consortium with color removal 9.5, 1.13, 8.02 and 17.5%, respectively, within 2 days. However, Viandox sauce was retained for further study. The effect of initial pH and Viandox concentration on decolorization and growth of bacterial consortium were further determined. The highest decolorization of 18.3% was achieved at pH 4 after 2 day of incubation. Experiments on fresh or used medium and used or fresh bacterial cells, led to conclusion that the limitation of decolorization was due to nutritional deficiency. The effect of aeration on decolorization was also carried out in 2 L laboratory-scale suspended cell bioreactor. The maximum decolorization was 19.3% with aeration at KLa = 2.5836 h -1 (0.1 vvm).

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Adenosine phosphosulfate (APS) reductase is one of key enzymes in the sulfur assimilation pathway in higher plants, catalyzing the formation of adenosine 5Ј-phosphosulfate from sulfate and ATP. In order to improve sulfur uptake capacity of water spinach (Ipomea aquatica), a plant which commonly grows wild in Southern Asia and has good potential for sequestration of environmental pollutants like sulfuric compounds, an Arabidopsis gene (APR1), encoding a plastidresident APS reductase, was introduced into cut cotyledons via Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Among 267 regenerated shoots initially obtained from 2,119 cotyledon explants, two were found to efficiently express the introduced gene and could be grown to maturity. APS reductase activity in leaves was estimated to be over 2-fold the wild-type level. Upon cultivation in the presence of 2 mM sodium sulfate, a 2.5-fold higher sulfate uptake was observed in comparison with wild-type plants. When grown in the presence of toxic levels of sulfide or cadmium, they showed a higher tolerance with increased fresh weight as compared with controls. These results suggest that transcription from the introduced gene indeed strengthened the sulfur assimilation pathway, and that the generated plants may be practically useful for phytoremediation.