Isolation and characterisation of some pseudomonas species from soil contaminated with fuel oil

SUMMARY Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which are petroleum and petroleum derivatives, are widespread organic pollutants entering the environment by various ways. Since most of these persist in the environment for long time and bioaccumulate, they cause environmental pollution. The cleaning of the environment from the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons is very important in applied microbiology. Determination, isolation and characterisation of bacteria which participate in the biodegradation of PAHs have importance in the decontamination of the environment in shorter periods. Therefore, in the present study, we aimed to determine PAH decomposing bacteria from an environment contaminated with fuel oil, identify all of the bacteria which belongs to Pseudomonas, observe Pseudomonas which have plasmid and determine the biological features of these plasmids. We identified 45 isolate in the studied samples, 6 of these isolates belongs to Pseudomonas, and 4 Pseudomonas have ability to biodegrade phenanthrene. Morphological, physiological, biochemical, chemotaxonomic and molecular characteristics of the Pseudomonas isolates were determined. Two of phenanthrene decomposing Pseudomonas were found to contain plasmid. Relevance of these plasmids with phenanthrene decomposition and their molecular characterisation have been studied. Key Words: Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon, Pseudomonas, Biodegradation VIII