I want to isolate a consortium of bacteria effective for cleaning soil contaminated with DDT, Aldrin, Dialdrin and Endosulfan.
Dear Awad,
You have to isolate from soil a pool of bacteria and perform the capacity of each of them to degrade the contaminants in vitro on minimal media. The protocols for bacterial isolations from soil can be found in the literature.
you have to first assess the groups of pesticides in the contaminated soil . then by enrichment technique purify microorganisms capable of using the specific pesticides as carbon source. the various isolates will have to be evaluated for their relative potential to utilise pesticides and then a consortia of potent bacteria can be used to to reduce the pesticide load from contaminated soils. relevant literature is amply available
Awad,
All these pesticides, and their degradation products described in the literature DO NOT serve as a carbon and/or energy source for growth of bacteria; all the metabolites described were produced by co-oxidation only of the target compounds. From the Al/En/Dieldrin and Endosulfan pesticides bacteria can only use a few of the carbon atoms but leave the highly chlorinated chlorendic acid as the dead-end product: all these pesticides are extremely recalcitrant towards biodegradation, and this fact is one of the many reasons because they have been banned since decades.
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