Cloning and characterization of genes involved in bioremediation from nocardioform bacteria
Date
2014-05-19
Authors
Lemaire, Peter Amponsah
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Abstract
The alarm ing incidence of pollution arising from technological advancement has attracted much
concern worldwide. Bioremediation has been considered promising to offer cost-effective,
pollution-free and economically feasible means of removing pollutants from the environment.
Within this framework, it was desired to clone and characterize genes responsible for two
bioremediations, viz cesium accumulation and benzoate degradation. Genomic library of
Rhodococcus erythropolis CS98 was constructed, using shuttle vector pDA71, in Escherichia coli
strain MM294-4 and the pool of recombinant plasmids of this library transformed into
Rhodococcus strain SQL The transformants were screened for acquired ability to utilize benzoate
as sole carbon source. Various genomic libraries were also screened for tolerance to high
concentrations of NaCl. Three different gene inserts of sizes 2.8kb, 3.7kb and 31.8kb were
identified from mutants with acquired ability to degrade benzoate. Meanwhile, genomic library
of CS98 in strain SQ1 had clones that could confer osmotolerance phenotypes. CS98 therefore,
bears genes responsible for benzoate degradation and osmotolerance. Genomic libraries of
Nocardia brasiliensis, Mycobacterium avium, Rhodococcus australis A448 and Rhodococcus
rhodochrous ATCC 12674 all had clones that could confer osmotolerance phenotypes.