Biodegradation

, Volume 19, Issue 6, pp 909–913 | Cite as

Anaerobic degradation of p-xylene in sediment-free sulfate-reducing enrichment culture

Original Paper
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Abstract

Anaerobic degradation of p-xylene was studied with sulfate-reducing enrichment culture. The enrichment culture was established with sediment-free sulfate-reducing consortium on crude oil. The crude oil-degrading consortium prepared with marine sediment revealed that toluene, and xylenes among the fraction of alkylbenzene in the crude oil were consumed during the incubation. The PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis of 16S rRNA gene for the p-xylene degrading sulfate-reducing enrichment culture showed the presence of the single dominant DGGE band pXy-K-13 coupled with p-xylene consumption and sulfide production. Sequence analysis of the DGGE band revealed a close relationship between DGGE band pXy-K-13 and the previously described marine sulfate-reducing strain oXyS1 (similarity value, 99%), which grow anaerobically with o-xylene. These results suggest that microorganism corresponding to pXy-K-13 is an important sulfate-reducing bacterium to degrade p-xylene in the enrichment culture.

Keywords

p-Xylene Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) Anaerobic Deltaproteobacteria 

Abbreviations

DGGE

Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis

BTEX

Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and o-, m-, and p-xylenes

SRB

Sulfate-reducing bacteria

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Notes

Acknowledgments

The authors are indebted to Dr. Yoshitaka Yonezawa, Dr. Yoshikuni Urushirawa, Dr. Olaf Kniemeyer, Dr. Karsten Zengler and Prof. Dr. Friedrich Widdel for their valuable discussion and encouragement. This work was supported by a grant of Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to M.F. (12440219).

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.College of Bioresource SciencesNihon UniversityFujisawaJapan
  2. 2.Energy Technology Research InstituteNational Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)TsukubaJapan
  3. 3.The Institute of Low Temperature ScienceHokkaido UniversityKita-ku SapporoJapan

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