Assessing the Potential of Rhizobacteria to Survive under Phenanthrene Pollution

• DOI: 10.1007/s11270-008-9821-x
• Publication Date: 2008-08-20T08:18:12Z
• Authors: Sergey N. Golubev; Andrei V. Schelud’ko; Anna Yu. Muratova; Oleg E. Makarov; Olga V. Turkovskaya
• Keywords: 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; 13. Climate action

Rhizobacteria possess a wide variety of qualities governing their pollutant-catabolic and rhizospheric competences. We investigated how the abilities to degrade phenanthrene and other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), to synthesize surfactants and the phytohormone indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), to be motile, and to perform chemotaxis toward phenanthrene and some potential root-exudate components were manifested in rhizobacteria isolated from oil-polluted sites. We observed that most of the examined rhizobacteria had the abilities under consideration and that in some strains, these were strongly affected by the bacterial environment. Only one strain—Sinorhizobium meliloti P221—exhibited increased PAH-degrading, surfactant-producing, and IAA-synthesizing activities, as well as distinct behavioral responses. We conclude that S. meliloti P221 can be used as a model to assess the contributions of all these activities to plant-inoculation-induced reduction in the soil PAH contents. This strain also may be useful for phytoremediation applications.