Author(s)

Esther Ebah, Tersagh Ichor, Gideon C. Okpokwasili

Department of Microbiology, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

Marine sediments collected from Onne Port, Rivers State Nigeria were manually polluted with tributyltin chloride (TBTCl) to evaluate the abilities of bacterial isolates to degrade the pollutant. Bacterial isolates were screened with at varying concentrations of 3 mM, 5 mM, 7 mM, and 10 mM. Bacterial strains with outstanding capabilities of utilizing TBTCl were biochemically and molecularly characterized. The total bacterial counts varied from 42 × 10² to 64.4 × 10² cfu/g when plated on MSA only and the viable counts on MSA to 3 mM TBTCl and MSA + 5 mM TBTCl ranged from 22 × 10¹ to 38.5 × 10² cfu/g and 18 × 10¹ from 21.9 × 10¹ cfu/g respectively; however, the total viable count in MSA + 10 mM TBTCl ranged from 1.1 × 10¹ - 3.8 × 10¹ cfu/g. Statistically, total bacterial count varied significantly across the sample sites p < 0.05 (one-way ANOVA). The 2 isolates that showed distinctive growth in the presence of high concentration of TBTCl (10 mM) were molecularly identified as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Pseudomonas fluorescens. The 16 SrRNA sequence phylogenetic analysis using BLAST program showed that the isolates were proteobacteria. Since there are scanty works on the mechanisms of the degradation of organotin, it is then important that isolates that can tolerate organotin to a large extent can be used in the cleanup of organotin-contaminated site. Pseudomonas aeuroginosa and Pseudomonas fluorescens are candidates for the bioremediation of the contaminated site.

Organotin, Tributyltin, Degradation

Ebah, E. , Ichor, T. and Okpokwasili, G. (2016) Isolation and Biological Characterization of Tributyltin Degrading Bacterial from Onne Port Sediment. Open Journal of Marine Science, 6, 193-199. doi: 10.4236/ojms.2016.62015.