Biodegradation of emerging organic pollutant gemfibrozil: Mechanism, kinetics and pathway modelling.

The increasing population has raised the demand for pharmaceutical and personal care products to maintain a good health. Gemfibrozil (GEM), is extensively used as a lipid regulator and is frequently detected in wastewater treatment systems and poses deleterious health and ecological effects. Hence, the current study employing Bacillus sp. N2 reports the degradation of gemfibrozil via co-metabolism in 15 days. The study reported 86 % degradation with GEM (20 mgL) using sucrose (150 mgL) as a co-substrate; as compared to 42 % without a co-substrate. Further, time-profiling studies of metabolites revealed significant demethylation and decarboxylation reactions during degradation that leads to formation of six (M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6) metabolites as by-products. Based on the LC-MS analysis a potential degradation pathway for GEM by Bacillus sp. N2 was proposed. The degradation of GEM has not been reported so far and the study envisages eco-friendly approach to tackle pharmaceutical- active- compounds.