Engineering Bacteria for Bioremediation of Persistent Organochlorine Pesticide Lindane (Gamma-Hexachlorocyclohexane)

Bioresource Technology 149 (2013) 439–445

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Bioresource Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biortech

Engineering bacteria for bioremediation of persistent organochlorine pesticide lindane (gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane)

Akhilesh Kumar Chaurasia a,b, Tapan Kumar Adhya c,d, Shree Kumar Apte a,⇑

a

Molecular Biology Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai 400 085, India Samsung Biomedical Research Institute, School of Medicine, SKKU, Suwon 440 746, South Korea c Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, India d School of Biotechnology, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar 751 024, India

b

h i g h l i g h t s

 GroEL expression identified as a major target for lindane toxicity in Anabaena.  Recombinant Anabaena strain developed to bioremediate lindane in paddy fields.  LinA2 overexpression facilitated degradation of all isomers of lindane by GM Escherichia coli.  Fluorescence quenching-based method designed for visual lindane detection on plates.  Degradation of high lindane levels (2 mg/ml) by dead bioengineered E. coli demonstrated.

a r t i c l e

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a b s t r a c t

Strategies were designed for bioremediation of the highly persistent toxic pesticide c-hexachlorocyclohexane (c-HCH) or lindane from the environment. Lindane caused the loss of stress-protective chaperone GroEL, and inhibited photosynthesis, respiration and nitrogen-fixation in Anabaena, resulting in growth arrest. To alleviate lindane toxicity, the linA2 gene, encoding HCH dehydrochlorinase from Sphingomonas paucimobilis B90, was knocked-in at an innocuous locus in Anabaena genome and over-expressed from an eco-friendly light-inducible PpsbA1 promoter. The recombinant Anabaena degraded >98% of 10 ppm lindane within 6–10 days. A LinA2 overexpressing Escherichia coli strain could degrade 10 ppm of all the isomers of lindane within 1 h and displayed a visual degradation zone on a newly designed histochemical...