Leptolyngbya fragilis ISC 108 is the most effective strain for dodecane biodegradation in contaminated soils

Abstract

One of the major environmental problems nowadays is petroleum hydrocarbons contamination. Bioremediation is widely used for cleaning ecosystems contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons. This study was carried out to investigate the response of five microalgae strains isolated from different regions in Iran for 1% n-dodecane (DOD) degradation. The results revealed that Leptolyngbya fragilis ISC 108 is the most effective strain to utilize n-DOD as growth substrate under a mixotrophic condition. Currently, there is little information about mechanisms involved in microalgae response against DOD. The activity of antioxidant enzymes and total lipid and carbohydrate contents were observed to be greater in DOD-treated L. fragilis ISC 108. Lower values of lipid peroxidation and H₂O₂ along with an increase of dry weight and specific growth rate in L. fragilis ISC 108 under DOD treatment shows that at the cellular level this strain is better equipped with an efficient oxygen radical scavenging system. In conclusion, this study proposes that L. fragilis ISC 108 can be considered an ideal candidate for use in bioremediation of DOD contaminated sites.

Keywords:

• Biodegradation
• dodecane
• microalgae

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author contributions

This research paper was accomplished with the collaboration of all authors. Mahboobe Ghanbarzadeh, a Ph.D. candidate, performed the experiments, analyzed data, and wrote the manuscript. Dr Vahid Niknam and Dr Neda Soltani designed the study and supervised the entire work. Dr Hasan Ebrahimzadeh was the study advisor and involved in a few experiments.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially equally supported by College of Science, University of Tehran and Research Institute of Applied Science, Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research (ACECR), Tehran, Iran.