Removal of Crude Oil by Microbial Consortium Isolated from Oil-Spilled Area in the Korean Western Coast

Abstract

The feasibility of using an indigenous microbial consortium for the removal of crude oil from an oil-spilled coastal area was explored with the ultimate aim of applying for bioremediation. Initially, we obtained the microbial consortium TK-2 that catalyzed the dispersion as well as the degradation of crude oil in supplemented sea water. GC and GC-MS were used to evaluate the removal patterns of crude oil during the incubation. The effective removal of crude oil by TK-2 occurred, and above 95 % of all aliphatic and aromatic compounds detected in this work was removed within 30 days of incubation. Two predominant crude oil-grown isolates derived from TK-2 revealed Gram-negative, rod-shaped cells. Both BIOLOG system and 16S rRNA sequencing were conducted to identify the strains, which were assigned to Arthrobacter sp. HK-2 and Pseudoalteromonas sp. HK-3, and registered in GenBank as [FJ477042] and [FJ477041].