Immobilized cells of a novel bacterium increased the degradation of N- methylated carbamates under low temperature conditions

Anum Fareed; Sania Riaz; Ismat Nawaz; Mazhar Iqbal; Raza Ahmed; Jamshaid Hussain; Azhar Hussain; Azhar Rashid; Tatheer Alam Naqvi

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02740

Immobilized cells of a novel bacterium increased the degradation of N- methylated carbamates under low temperature conditions

Heliyon. 2019 Nov 19;5(11):e02740. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02740. eCollection 2019 Nov.

Authors

Anum Fareed¹, Sania Riaz¹, Ismat Nawaz¹, Mazhar Iqbal², Raza Ahmed¹, Jamshaid Hussain¹, Azhar Hussain³, Azhar Rashid⁴, Tatheer Alam Naqvi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biotechnology, COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad Campus, Pakistan.
² Department of Environmental Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
³ Department of Agriculture and Food Technology, Karakoram International University, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan.
⁴ Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Nuclear Institute for Food and Agriculture, Peshawar, Pakistan.

Abstract

Carbamates are synthetic pesticides, extensively used throughout the world due to their broad specificity against various insect pests. However, their enormous and inadequate use have made them a potential threat to the environment. At low temperature, degradation of carbamates becomes difficult mainly because of low biological activity. In the present study, we isolated a bacterial strain from a low temperature climate where the N-methylated carbamates are used for crop protection. The bacterium, was identified as Pseudomonas plecoglossicida strain (TA3) by 16S rRNA analysis. Degradation experiments with both free and immobilized cells in minimal salt medium indicated that the strain TA3 utilized carbaryl, carbofuran and aldicarb as both carbon and nitrogen source. TA3 can grow well at 4 °C and demonstrated the ability to degrade three carbamates (50 μgml^-1) at low temperature. The immobilized cells were found more efficient than their free cells counter parts. Immobilized cells has ability to degrade 100% of carbamates at 30 °C while 80% at 4 °C but incase of their free cells counter parts the efficiency to degrade carbamates was less which was 60% at 4 °C and 80% at 30 °C. TA3 free cellsextract also depicted high activity against all the three carbamates even at 4 °C indicating a possible enzymatic mechanism of degradation.

Keywords: Agricultural soil science; Agriculture; Bacteria; Biodegradation; Biotechnology; Carbamates; Environmental pollution; Immobilized cells; Microbiology; Pesticide; Psychrophile.