Enhanced biodegradation of phenanthrene and anthracene using a microalgal-bacterial consortium

Mubasher Zahir Hoque; Abdulrahman Alqahtani; Saravanan Sankaran; Deepak Anand; Musa M Musa; Alexis Nzila; Gea Guerriero; Khawar Sohail Siddiqui; Irshad Ahmad

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1227210

Enhanced biodegradation of phenanthrene and anthracene using a microalgal-bacterial consortium

Front Microbiol. 2023 Sep 13:14:1227210. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1227210. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Mubasher Zahir Hoque¹, Abdulrahman Alqahtani¹, Saravanan Sankaran¹, Deepak Anand¹, Musa M Musa^{2

3}, Alexis Nzila^{1

4}, Gea Guerriero⁵, Khawar Sohail Siddiqui⁶, Irshad Ahmad^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Bioengineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Chemistry, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
³ Interdisciplinary Research Center for Refining and Advanced Chemicals, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Interdisciplinary Research Center for Membranes and Water Security, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Environmental Research and Innovation (ERIN) Department, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, Hautcharage, Luxembourg.
⁶ School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences (BABS), The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Abstract

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are chemicals that are released into the environment during activities of the petroleum industry. The bioaccumulation, carcinogenic and mutagenic potential of PAHs necessitates the bioremediation of these contaminants. However, bioremediation of PAHs has a number of limitations including the inability of a single microbe to degrade all of the PAH fraction's environmental constituents. Therefore, a different paradigm, employing microalgal-bacterial consortium (MBC), may be used to effectively remove PAHs contaminants. In this type of interaction, the microalgae and bacteria species in the consortium work together in a way that enhances the overall performance of the MBC. Bacterial species in the consortium provide essential nutrients or growth factors by degrading toxic substances and provide these to microalgae, while the microalgae species provide organic carbon for the bacterial species to grow. For the first time, the ability of Gonium pectorale (G. pectorale) microalgae to break down phenanthrene (PHE) and anthracene (ANT) was investigated. Phenanthrene was shown to be more effectively degraded by G. pectorale (98%) as compared to Bacillus licheniformis (B. licheniformis) 19%. Similarly, G. pectorale has effectively degrade anthracene (98%) as compared with B. licheniformis (45%). The consortia of G. pectorale and B. licheniformis has shown a slight increase in the degradation of PHE (96%) and ANT (99%). Our findings show that B. licheniformis did not inhibit the growth of G. pectorale and in the consortia has effectively eliminated the PAHs from the media. Therefore G. pectorale has a tremendous potential to remove PAHs from the polluted environment. Future research will be conducted to assess Gonium's capacity to eliminate PAHs that exhibit high molar masses than that of PHE and ANT.

Keywords: Gonium pectorale; biodegradation genes; microalgal-bacterial consortium; petrogenic pollutants; phenanthrene and anthracene; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; water contaminants.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by project number INMW2301 by Interdisciplinary Research Center for Membranes and Water Security (IRC-MWS), King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.