THE EFFECTS OF DDT/DDD/DDE ON SOIL MICROBES

The highly persistent DDT and its metabolites are seriously endangering human health, limit land use options and drinking water usage. Theoretically DDT contaminations could be treated with bioremediation methods, but such microbes are needed that have efficient degrading activity. For isolating DDT degrading microbes DDT contaminated soil samples were used that were collected in Kyrgyzstan. 13 bacterium strains were isolated and maintained as axenic cultures. According to the 16Sr DNA sequence analysis 10 isolates belong to theBacillus, 1 to thePseudomonasand 1 to theGordoniagenus. The DDT degrading capability of the isolates was detected by GC analytic method. Among the researched strains only theGordonia amicalisKIR-2E showed significant DDT degradation. It could decrease the original 1 ppm DDT concentration by 94% during the 5 days experiment. Based on the notable DDT degrading abilities this strain could be used to develop novel bioremediation methods.