Ramdass Amanda C, Rampersad Sephra N
Biochemistry Research Laboratory (Rm216), Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies.
Microorganisms. 2021 May 28;9(6):1167. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms9061167.
Trinidad and Tobago is the largest producer of oil and natural gas in Central America and the Caribbean. Natural crude oil seeps, in addition to leaking petroleum pipelines, have resulted in chronic contamination of the surrounding terrestrial environments since the time of petroleum discovery, production, and refinement in Trinidad. In this study, we isolated microbes from soils chronically contaminated with crude oil using a culture-dependent approach with enrichment. The sampling of eight such sites located in the southern peninsula of Trinidad revealed a diverse microbial composition and novel oil-degrading filamentous fungi and yeast as single-isolate degraders and naturally occurring consortia, with specific bacterial species not previously reported in the literature. Multiple sequence comparisons and phylogenetic analyses confirmed the identity of the top degraders. The filamentous fungal community based on culturable species was dominated by Ascomycota, and the recovered yeast isolates were affiliated with Basidiomycota (65.23%) and Ascomycota (34.78%) phyla. Enhanced biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons is maintained by biocatalysts such as lipases. Five out of seven species demonstrated extracellular lipase activity in vitro. Our findings could provide new insights into microbial resources from chronically contaminated terrestrial environments, and this information will be beneficial to the bioremediation of petroleum contamination and other industrial applications.
特立尼达和多巴哥是中美洲和加勒比地区最大的石油和天然气生产国。自特立尼达发现、生产和提炼石油以来，除了石油管道泄漏外，天然原油渗漏导致周围陆地环境长期受到污染。在本研究中，我们采用富集培养依赖型方法，从长期受原油污染的土壤中分离微生物。对位于特立尼达南部半岛的八个此类地点进行采样，结果显示出多样的微生物组成，以及新型的石油降解丝状真菌和酵母，它们作为单一分离降解菌和天然存在的菌群，其中有文献中未曾报道过的特定细菌种类。多重序列比较和系统发育分析证实了主要降解菌的身份。基于可培养物种的丝状真菌群落以子囊菌门为主，回收的酵母分离株隶属于担子菌门（65.23%）和子囊菌门（34.78%）。诸如脂肪酶等生物催化剂可维持石油烃的增强生物降解。七个物种中有五个在体外表现出胞外脂肪酶活性。我们的研究结果可为长期受污染陆地环境中的微生物资源提供新的见解，这些信息将有助于石油污染的生物修复及其他工业应用。
