ISSN: 2471-9315
Deoxier Ribo C Agub
University of the Philippines, Philippines
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Appli Micro
Styrene is a toxic substance released in the environment during the manufacture and application of its isomers. Bacteria can degrade styrene and convert recalcitrant polystyrene into an environmental friendly plastic. This study was conducted to isolate and identify styrene degrading bacteria from Irisan dumpsite. 10 isolates where chosen for identification through sequencing based on the biochemical tests results. One of the 10 isolates were from an uninoculated control not exposed to styrene and was identified to be Burkholderia rinojensis and three of the ten isolates were identified to be Burkholderia cepacia. Seven putative styrene degrading bacteria were identified through 16S rRNA sequencing and BLAST analyses namely, Brevundimonas diminuta, Burkholderia cepacia, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus sonorensis, Bacillus licheniformis and Burkholderia vietnamensis. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that B. cepacia is a distant relative among the identified bacteria. Furthermore, B. diminuta is a distinct close relative of B. subtilis, B. sonorensis and B. licheniformis. Previous studies have shown that B. licheniformis participate in styrene degradation by producing enzymes phenyl-acetaldehyde dehydrogenase and catechol 2, 3-dioxygenase. Furthermore, organisms which can produce the enzyme catechol 2, 3-dioxygenase participate in styrene degradation. It is highly recommended that high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) be used to quantitatively measure the rate of styrene degradation.