Bacterial community shifts in a di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate-degrading enriched consortium and the isolation and characterization of degraders predicted through network analyses.

Di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is an extensively used and toxic phthalate plasticizer that is widely reported in marine environments. Degradation of DEHP by bacteria from several environments have been studied, but little is known about marine sediment bacteria that can degrade DEHP and other phthalate plasticizers. Therefore, in this study, we enriched a bacterial consortium C10 that can degrade four phthalate plasticizers of varying alkyl chain lengths (DEHP, dibutyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate, and dimethyl phthalate) from marine sediment.