Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

Soil pollution with oil is one of the most pressing problems in Kazakhstan. Oil-polluted soils are in need of bioremediation. The eight most active strains of oil-oxidizing microorganisms were isolated and sampled from oil-polluted soils in Southern Kazakhstan. They utilized up to 58.3-72.5% of oil over 14 days. On the basis of genetic analysis by sequencing of 16S RNA gene fragments, these strains were allocated to the genera Gordonia, Dietzia, Rhodococcus, Microbacterium , and Pseudomonas . Five associations of oil-oxidizing microorganisms have been developed which were capable of active oxidizing oil hydrocarbons. In the model laboratory experiments, it was shown that under their introduction in soil artificially polluted with 5% of oil, the purification efficiency made up 61.7-77.2%, while with 10% pollution was of 55.4-65.2% over two months. Two of the most effective associations were tested in the oil test facility, where the pollution exceeded the average rate. The test results revealed that under these conditions the destruction of oil came to 61% and 73.9 %. Two months following their introduction into the oil-polluted soil, an increase in the number of most groups of soil microflora took place, primarily hydrocarbon-oxidizing microorganisms. Their number increased by four orders of magnitude (from 102to 106 cells/g). At the same time, an increase in catalase and dehydrogenase activities was recorded.

Biography

Svetlana Aitkeldiyeva is the head of the Department of Microbiology, Institute of microbiology and virology. She has completed her PhD in 1984 and postdoctoral studies in 2002. She has published 12 papers in international journals, and is the author more than 30 patents. Her scientific interests are following: Ecology of microorganisms, bioremediation of oil-polluted ecosystems, learning the processes of metals biocorrosion and working-out microbiological methods to protect metal from corrosion.