Double Trouble Oil Degradation

 By: Raul Gonzalez

Bar graph representation of a 7-day culture biodegradation measurement of crude oil, saturates and aromatics by Bacillus subtilis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.  T1 shows B. subtilis only, T2 is P aeruginosa, T3-T5 show both cultures at ratios of 1:1, 1:2, 2:1, respectively.  Figure taken from Wu et al. 2023.

Throughout history humans have caused negative impacts on environmental health, namely through crude oil spills like that of the Exon-Valdez disaster.  Several techniques have been used for oil clean-up with bioremediation being a helpful and cost-efficient method for large-scale disasters.  Bioremediation is a way to help clean up environmental pollutants by using biological organisms, like bacteria, to do the work.  A recent study conducted by Wu et al. in 2023 has taken bioremediation a step further by utilizing a co-culture method.  In this method, two bacterial species--Bacillus subtilis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa are grown in a petri dish containing crude oil to see how well they clean it up.  Other saturates (hydrocarbons) and aromatics were included in the study to see how well those were also cleaned up by the bacteria.  The methods included five observations: B. subtilis only, P. aeruginosa only, both bacteria at 1 to 1, 1 to 2, and 2 to 1 ratios, respectively.  The results showed that over the course of a 7-day period 63.05% of crude oil was degraded most efficiently by the 1 to 1 ratio of both bacteria working together.  This finding opens a new method for environmental scientists to approach bioremediation strategies that could provide a greater impact on pollutant clean-up efforts worldwide.  

Wu B, Xiu J, Yu L, Huang L, Yi L and Ma Y (2023) Degradation of crude oil in a co-culture system of Bacillus subtilis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Frontiers in Microbiology. 14:1132831.  https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1132831