Isolation and characterization of Indigenous Bacilli strains from an oil refinery wastewater with potential applications for phenol/cresol bioremediation.

Phenolic compounds are frequently occurring in wastewaters from various industrial processes at high concentrations, imposing prominent risk to aquatic biosphere and human health. Bioremediation has been proven to be an effective approach to remove these compounds, and hunting for functional organisms is still of primary importance to develop efficient processes. In this study, we report several newly isolated bacillus strains with superior performances in metabolizing phenols, one of which showed paramount efficiencies to metabolize phenol at concentrations up to 1200 mg L and could simultaneously degrade a wide range of other phenolic compounds.

Diversity shift in bacterial phenol hydroxylases driven by alkyl-phenols in oil refinery wastewaters.

Phenol hydroxylases (PHs) play a primary role in the bacterial degradation of phenol and alkylphenols. They are divided into two main classes, single-component and multi-component PHs, having distinctive catalytic subunits designated as PheA1 and LmPH, respectively. The diversity of these enzymes is still largely unexplored.