Maternity

INVESTIGATION OF UNKNOWN GENETIC MATERIAL OBTAINED FROM MOAT

INTRODUCTION

Bioremediation is a technology that utilizes microorganisms that are naturally present in soils, waters and other environments to consume and degrade toxic and other possibly harmful contaminants in to safer compounds, such as carbon dioxide and even nutrition for other bacteria.[1] This process of degradation of harmful material is called biodegrading.[4] Bioremediation is a successful means to lowering pollution effects because it utilizes the diversity that is naturally found in bacteria, this is particularly true due to the fact that bacteria are specialised in their functions and abilities to live in extreme environments such as the highly toxic habitats that are the target of bioremediation.[2][3] Recently discovered in swine lagoons is a new strain of Rhodobacter, sp.strain PS9. It is a bacterium used for bioremediation to cut down the odour and toxins caused by the swine lagoons. The bacterium is an anaerobic organism that causes the purple pigmentation that was noticed in swine lagoons. It was discovered that during the photosynthetic bloom of the organism, volatile organic compounds that were the cause of the horrific smell, were reduced by approximately 80- 93%.[5] Alcanivorax borkumensis is a bacterium that breaks down oils as an energy source. It normally is a rare microorganism in the ocean, that is, until there is an oil spill. The organism rapidly multiplies and becomes the dominant organism in that area. The organism gains energy from oil by breaking down the alkanes in the oil, this provides it with a food source. This biodegrading of oil normally takes an inordinate amount of time because not many organisms use it as a food source, but when Alcanivorax borkumensis is present the oil...