Chebbi Alif, Mhiri Najla, Rezgui Fatma, Ammar Najoua, Maalej Amina, Sayadi Sami, Chamkha Mohamed
Laboratory of Environmental Bioprocesses, LMI COSYS-Med, Centre of Biotechnology of Sfax, University of Sfax, PO Box 1177, 3018 Sfax, Tunisia.
Research Center on Phosphates and Phosphoric Acid, Groupe Chimique Tunisien (GCT), BP S, 3003 Sfax, Tunisia.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2015 Jul;362(14). doi: 10.1093/femsle/fnv097. Epub 2015 Jun 17.
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and thiols (RSH) generated by the phosphate industry cause harmful effects on human health and quality of life. The present study aims to investigate and evaluate a bacterial strain CAT37 isolated from gas-washing wastewaters in terms of its properties and ability to degrade malodorous thiols. Gas-washing wastewater samples were submitted to physicochemical analyses and used for the isolation of thiol-degrading bacteria. The results from gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis revealed that the isolated strain CAT37 was able to oxidize ∼99% of each thiol, decanethiol and dodecanethiol used as sole carbon and energy sources after 30 days of incubation at 37°C. The strain CAT37 displayed a biodegradative potential on several thiols known by their toxicity and odors. The results from phylogenetic and phenotypic analysis revealed that the CAT37 isolate belonged to the genus Brevibacillus, showing the highest sequence similarity to Brevibacillus agri. Overall, the results indicated that the strain CAT37 exhibited a number of attractive biodegradation abilities against thiols and could be considered a promising candidate for industrial application in future thiol biodeodorization strategies.
