Correlation Studies of Indigenous Biofilm Forming Bacteria for Resistance Against Selected Metals, Antibiotics and Dyes Degradation

Abstract

This study determines correlation of biofilm-forming bacteria for selected metals, antibiotics and dyes. Total 12 strains having biofilm production potential were targeted in this study. Majority of them were Gram negative excluding MB377 and MB378, and facultative anaerobes. Isolates were mesophilic and exhibited growth capacity over a wide variety of pHs. Almost all isolates conferred resistance capacity against a wide range of multiple antibiotics having 0.0063 MAR for bacitracin, ampicillin, clindamycin, amoxicillin and sulphamethoxazole. Bacterial isolates displayed tolerance to diverse variety of metals i.e. cadmium, lead and iron 1000 mg L -1 , copper 600-1000 mg L -1 , chromium 700-1000 mg L -1 and nickel 200-600 mg L -1 . Maximum heavy metal tolerance of 0.033 was observed for all metals excluding nickel. Correlation among metal tolerance and antibiotic resistance was extremely significant for chromium and bacitracin 0.862. Furthermore, moderate relationship (r= 0.682) between copper resistance and Basic Green 4 dye degradation was observed. Correlation coefficient for cadmium and Acid Red 2 dye was recorded as 0.512, while that for bacitracin and Basic Green 4 was noted as 0.665. These correlations proposed that resistance conferring genes might be present on same locus, genetic elements, chromosome or on a plasmid. 16S rRNA sequenced isolates were identified to be Klebsiella pneumoniae MB375, Staphylococcus sp. MB377, Klebsiella oxytoca MB381, Klebsiella pneumoniae MB394 and Klebsiella pneumoniae MB398. Potential of these biofilm forming strains to thrive under stressed environmental conditions proves them good entrants for being used in bioremoval of polluted sites after further studies on their metabolic pathways. ARTICLE INFO

Optimising Wastewater Treatment: Acinetobacter sp. IrC1 As a Potential Multi-Resistant Bacterium for Copper Accumulation and Dyes Decolourisation

“…Bacillus altitudinis MT422188 (Khan et al 2022), Klebsiella pneumoniae MB375, Staphylococcus sp. MB377, Klebsiella oxytoca MB381 (Tahir et al 2021), Pseudomonas veronii (Busnelli & Vullo 2022), Citrobacteria freundii (Sharma & Fulekar 2009) have been reported as copper resistant bacteria employed to reduce copper concentrations or bio-transform the chemical properties of copper into less-toxic forms. However, the study on multiresistant bacteria to copper and dyes has so far been quite limited.…”