Phylogenetic diversity of organophosphorous pesticide-degrading coral bacteria from mid-west coast of Indonesia

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the general insights into the diversity of the bacterial community associated with the corals which capable of degrading organophosphorous pesticide. The diversity of indigenous bacteria associated with corals from several sites in the Indonesia coastal waters able to degrade organophosphorous compounds (OPs) was investigated using of culture-based methods and molecular analyses. Twenty five strains among 103 isolates (24.36%) demonstrated their capability of degrading selected organophosphates (diazinon, chlorpyrifos, profenofos and ethion) as sole source of carbon and energy. A rapid grouping of the 25 selected isolates by using repetitive extragenic palindromic (rep)-PCR genomic fingerprinting with ERIC and BOXA1R primers was carried to estimate the richness of the isolates and 6 representative strains were examined further. Following partial sequencings of the 16S rDNA, it was shown that these strains belonged to three major groups of bacteria: (i) members of the division Bacillus, (ii) Actinobacteria and(iii) γ-Proteobacteria. Strain KM5, IM33, BM5, SB3, KF4 and BY6 were closely related to Brachybacterium sp., Kytococcus sp., Brevibacterium sp., Chromohalobacter sp., Oceanobacillus sp. and Bacillus sp., respectively. This study provides the first evidence of organophosphorous pesticide-degrading bacteria isolated from corals. © 2008 Asian Network for Scientific Information.