Abstract
Sugar industrial effluents possess high amounts of toxic pollutants and contaminate the receiving sites. Treatment of contaminated sites by using microorganisms provides an alternate to conventional methods hence demands in the identification of metal tolerant microorganisms has been increasing day by day. Therefore in this study soil samples collected from Tanuku sugar factory residual effluent point (bank of Gosthani river), west Godavari district A.P were analyzed for the bacterial tolerance to Copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn) and Lead (Pb) in their chloride forms. Additionally, the study was carried out to identify the metal tolerant bacteria by morphological, biochemical and 16S rRNA gene sequencing studies. Four potential bacterial isolates were selected to analyze metal tolerance against CuCl2, ZnCl2, and PbCl2. The sequences were compared with those in NCBI and submitted in gene bank with accession numbers MK100333 (Paenibacillus cookie), MK100334 (Bacillus cereus), MK100335 (Aneurini bacillus sp) and MK100387 (Paenibacillus sp.). A Phylogenetic tree was constructed to Paenibacillus sp. the highly efficient bacterial strain among the four isolates using MEGA 7 soft ware. The results of this study showed that P. dentritiformis had multiple metal tolerances (Cu, Zn and Pb) up to 500mg/L after 72 hrs. The identified bacterial strain proved to be the strong heavy metal tolerant bacterial strain. Hence, its usage will be helpful in the treatment of heavy metals specifically Cu, Zn and Pb contaminated soils and further optimization of these cultures is required to improve its metal resistant capacity.