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Background: Petroleum polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are known to be toxic and carcinogenic for humans and their contamination of soils and water is of great environmental concern. Identification of the key microorganisms that play a role in pollutant degradation processes is relevant to the development of optimal in situ bioremediation strategies. Objective: Detection of the ability of Pseudomonas fluorescens AH-40 to consume phenanthrene as a sole carbon source and determining the variation in the concentration of both nahAC and C23O catabolic genes during 15 days of the incubation period. Methods: In the current study, a bacterial strain AH-40 was isolated from crude oil polluted soil by enrichment technique in mineral basal salts (MBS) medium supplemented with phenanthrene (PAH) as a sole carbon and energy source. The isolated strain was genetically identified based on 16S rDNA sequence analysis. The degradation of PAHs by this strain was confirmed by HPLC analysis. The detection and quantification of naphthalene dioxygenase (nahAc) and catechol 2,3-dioxygenase (C23O) genes, which play a critical role during the mineralization of PAHs in the liquid bacterial culture were achieved by quantitative PCR. Results: Strain AH-40 was identified as pseudomonas fluorescens. It degraded 97% of 150 mg phenanthrene L-1 within 15 days, which is faster than previously reported pure cultures. The copy numbers of chromosomal encoding catabolic genes nahAc and C23O increased during the process of phenanthrene degradation. Conclusion: nahAc and C23O genes are the main marker genes for phenanthrene degradation by strain AH-40. P. fluorescence AH-40 could be recommended for bioremediation of phenanthrene contaminated site.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the most important global public health problems. The imprudent use of antibiotics in humans and animals has resulted in the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The dissemination of these strains and their resistant determinants could endanger antibiotic efficacy. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify and develop novel strategies to combat antibiotic resistance. This review provides insights into the evolution and the mechanisms of AMR. Additionally, it discusses alternative approaches that might be used to control AMR, including probiotics, prebiotics, antimicrobial peptides, small molecules, organic acids, essential oils, bacteriophage, fecal transplants, and nanoparticles.

Microorganisms have an effective capability to degrade synthetic dyestuff enzymatically. In this study, two 16S rRNA identified Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterial isolates (ASU3 and ASU6) have been screened to enzymatically degrade both Disperse Blue 64 (DB64) and Acid Yellow 17 (AY17) which resembles 2 of the synthetic dyes that causes aquatic environmental pollution. The expression of the azoR1 gene has been detected in the strains, the degradation percentage of DB64 and AY17 by stain ASU6 was found to exceed the ASU3. This returned to the differences in the expression levels of azoR1 between the ASU6 and the ASU3 which was confirmed by RT-PCR. In addition, the specific activity (U/mg protein) of azoreductase in ASU6 was higher than ASU3 when MethylRed (MR), DB64 and AY17 were used as a substrate, separately. The azoreductase kinetics was studied to find the optimum condition for maintaining the stability of the enzyme. The degraded products separated by HPLC/MS were tested for their toxicity on two crop plants and they were nontoxic to the plants. Keywords: Azoreductase, Kinetics, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Synthetic dyes

Objectives:This study evaluates the ability of a non-white rot fungus strain, HESHAM-1, to degrade a mixture of low (naphthalene and phenanthrene) and high (chrysene and benzo(a)pyrene) molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (LMW and HMW PAHs).Methods:Strain HESHAM-1 was isolated from oil polluted soil by enrichment method using phenanthrene as the sole source of carbon and energy. The strain showed the ability to tolerate and degrade a mixture of both low and high molecular weight PAHs. In the presences of LMW-PAHs (naphthalene and phenanthrene) as co-substrate, chrysene and benzo(a)pyrene (HMW-PAHs) were, respectively degraded by the fungus strain HESHAM-1 which was confirmed by GC-MS analyses.Results:The degradation rate was found as 84.82% for naphthalene, 40.09% for phenanthrene, 57.84% for chrysene and 71.06% for benzo(a)pyrene at the end of 10 days. This is the first report describing the biodegradation of a mixture of four PAH compounds by non-white rot fungus strain HESHAM-1 isolated from Egyptian oil-polluted soil. The fungus strain HESHAM-1 was identified by morphological characteristics and molecular genetics technique based on PCR amplification and sequencing of the internal transcribed spacers (ITSs) of the rDNA region and intervening 5.8S rRNA gene. Blast result and phylogenetic analysis of gene sequencing suggested that strain HESHAM-1 was closely related toFusarium solaniwith 100% sequence identity.Conclusion:The present study clearly demonstrates that, strain HESHAM-1 could be used to remove the crude oil from the environment.

The use of bacteria is a good method for biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons due to their fast-growing and cost effectiveness. Bacteria can completely mineralize such toxic compounds to harmless by-products. ASU-035 is a bacterial strain, which was isolated from oil contaminated soil. It was identified as Achromobacter denitrificans on the basis of the nucleotide sequence of 16S rRNA gene, and deposited in GenBank under accession number KC342253. Achromobacter denitrificans have been tested for utilization of pyrene as a sole source of carbon and energy. Some pyrene degradative enzymes and ability of this strain for biosurfactants production have been studied. The results illustrated that the strain could utilize 76.5 mg/L of pyrene (100 mg/L) within 18 days with growth rate and mean generation time 0.033 h−1 and 30.3 h, respectively. The maximum specific activities (U/mg protein) of pyrene dioxygenase, catechol 1,2 dioxygenase (C12O), and catechol 2,3 dioxygenase (C23O) were 0.78 ± 0.12, 0.41 ± 0.05, and 0.2 ± 0.01, respectively. Achromobacter denitrificans could enhance the bioavailability of pyrene to get use of it as a sole carbon source by increasing the emulsification activity to 11.5 ± 2.1 U/mg proteins and cell-surface hydrophobicity to 39 ± 1.3 %.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are xenobiotic compounds, which being degraded by chemical, physical or biological methods. The latter is the safest and the cheapest one. Two bacterial strains ASU-01 and ASU-016 were isolated from different Egyptian petroleum contaminated sites. They were genetically identified based on the analysis of the nucleotide sequences of the 16S ribosomal PNA gene and the phylogenetic tree as Enterobacter hormaechei and Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes respectively. When pyrene as high molecular weight (HMW)-PAH was added as a sole carbon source, both strains could degrade it with efficiency 77.7 and 83.7% within 15 days of incubation, respectively. However, when it was mixed with low molecular weight (LMW)-PAHs, two opposite phenomena appeared. The first one was enhancement, which occurred with ASU-01. This strain shifted pyrene efficiency to 98.5%. The second phenomenon was inhibition occurred with ASU-016 which completely retarded pyrene degradation. Naphthalene dioxygenase (nahAc), and catechol dioxygenases (C12O and C23O) genes were detected in the two strains based on PCR. The detected genes were confirmed by determining the different specific activities of their translated protein (enzymes) on different PAHs. The maximum values of biosurfacatant production activity and cell-surface and percentage of cell-surface hydrophobicity (CSH) were detected during the exponential phase. These latter factors increased the bioavailability and consequently, the assimilation of PAHs.