Plasmid Incidence and Utilization of Kerosene by Hydrocarbonoclastic Fluorescent Pseudomonads Isolated from Local Soil

Environmental concerns have led to the need of sustainable use of natural resources. It is important to use natural bacterial population for environmental cleaner techniques. One of those strategies is biodegradation of natural or man made xenobiotic compounds. The present investigation is on isolation of hydrocarbon utilizing Pseudomonas from local red soil. The isolates were identified to species level by performing biochemical and physiological tests as P. aeruginosa, P. aureofaciens, P. putida and P. fluorescens. The isolates were screened for the utilization of petroleum hydrocarbon (kerosene) and the conditions (temp and pH) optimum for its utilization. The isolates were screened for their ability to utilize petroleum hydrocarbon (kerosene) as their sole source of carbon and energy. Biodegradation results revealed that, the highest growth was showed by P. putida followed by P. fluorescens, P. aureofaciens and P. aeruginosa. The results evidenced that, all the four isolates harbored two low molecular weight plasmids one with 3Kb and the other with 10kb to 12Kb.