PARENT SESSION
PW7 - Biotransformation / Metabolisms / Degradation
Wednesday, 20 November 2002
8:00 AM to 6:30 PM
Exhibit Hall

(P785) Effect of Succinate and Glycerol on Biodegradation of Tributyltin Chloride (TBTC).

Roy*, Upal^*,1, L.J., CABRAL¹, ¹ GOA UNIVERSITY, TALEIGAO PLATEAU, GOA, GOA, INDIA

ABSTRACT- There are very few bacterial strain have inherent capability of degrading Tributyltin Chloride which release in marine environment by consistent leach out from ship hulls, oil tankers etc on sea surface and marine sediments. Being one of the most toxic compounds to marine biota, Tributyltin is not a favorable carbon source for many bacteria,so the strain that utilizes this compound grows very slowly. This might be one of the reasons of slow rate of biodegradation of organotin. In present study bacterial strain, which was identified as Sphingmonas spp., was isolated from seawater of Mumbai High Oil field Area, India, through screening on the basis of utilization of TBTC as sole source of carbon. The optimum concentration of succinate, glycerol and Tributyltin Chloride for the growth of bacterial isolate was found to be 3.5%, 3% and 2mM respectively. The degradation study of isolate grown in 2mM of TBTC supplemented with optimum concentration of succinate and glycerol separately, showed that neither of these two carbon sources helps markedly in tributyltin biodegradation. It is interesting to note that absorption spectrum study of extracted cell, which is grown in required concentration of succinate, glycerol and TBTC showed a sharp increase in peak compared to only TBTC grown culture extract. This clearly shows that combination of glycerol and succinate as the supplement carbon sources increased the TBTC degradation activity several times compares to individual use. The observation indicates that presence of both succinate and glycerol helps Sphingomonas spp to utilize the easily available carbon source primarily inturns to increase in cell population which further start using tributyltin in later stage due to exhaustion of other carbon source and finally degrades the TBTC to less toxic compound.

Key words: Tributyltin Chloride (TBTC) , Succinate, Glycerol , Biodegradation