The genus Cycloclasticus is an important member of the marine bacterial consortium that remediated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) after the Deep Water Horizon oil spill. An immunoassay whose results matched those obtained by GC was used to monitor the kinetics of PAH degradation by the Cycloclasticus type strain, C. pugetii. For metabolism of single PAHs, C. pugetii was adapted for growth in minimal medium (ONR7a) containing 1% DMSO and 500μM purified PAH. Phenanthrene was rapidly degraded; however, C. pugetii could not grow in DMSO-ORN7a with fluoranthene, fluorene or pyrene unless the medium was also supplemented with biphenyl. When the immunoassays for phenanthrene, fluoranthene and flourene (IC50’s 8, 1.5 and 15 µM, respectively) were combined with a fluorescent viability assay, cell growth and time-dependent PAH disappearance could be monitored in the same culture flask. This novel method has now been adapted to monitor bacterial degradation of PAH’s spiked into crude oil samples and to study the effects of dispersants on bioremediation in spiked oil samples.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon degradation by Cycloclasticus, as measured by a novel immunoassay, correlates with increased cell proliferation

255th National Meeting (2018)

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