Environmental pollution from textile dyes has become a serious threat to the health of all living beings which requires urgent steps toward the development of cost-effective and eco-friendly methodologies; hence, the present study was undertaken. An efficient Reactive Blue 194 degrading bacterium was isolated from estuarine sediments of Vellar estuary, Porto Novo, Tamil Nadu, India, and the strain was identified as Bacillus megaterium PNS 15 using 16S rRNA partial sequence method. This strain showed an appreciable synthesis of dye degrading enzymes, namely, azoreductase and laccase and therefore played a major impact in the dye degradation activities. Further, this strain evidenced an appreciable biodegradation activity of 92.3% using a cheaper medium substrate, 5% wheat flour which was very close to the biodegradation activity of 93.6% obtained from the optimized biochemical medium with 2% lactose and 1% ammonium nitrate. Furthermore, the dye degraded broth using this potential strain and cheaper medium revealed much-reduced toxicity toward the germination rate of fenugreek seeds which revealed its eco-friendliness. All these results, strongly suggesting the use of B. megaterium PNS 15 for the appreciable and non-toxic biodegradation of RB 194 using wheat flour for cost-effective activities.
Key words: Biodegradation; Reactive blue 194; Bacillus megaterium; Screening; Cheaper source; Ecotoxicity
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