Biodiversity of Actinomycetes from Heavy Metal Contaminated Technosols

Abstract

Technosols are artificial soils generated by diverse human activities and frequently contain toxic substances resulting from industrial processes. Due to lack of nutrients and extreme physico-chemical properties, they represent environments with limited bacterial colonization. Bacterial populations of technosols are dominated usually by Actinobacteria, including streptomycetes, known as a tremendous source of biotechnologically important molecules. In this study, the biodiversity of streptomycete-like isolates from several technosols, mainly mine soils and wastes (landfills and sludge) in Slovakia, was investigated. The combination of basic morphological and biochemical characterisations, including heavy metal resistance determination, and molecular approaches based on 16S rRNA gene analysis were used for the identification of the bacterial strains. From nine isolates of Actinobacteria collected from different habitats, one was found to represent a new species within the Crossiella genus. Eight other isolates were assigned to the genus Streptomyces, of which at least one could represent a new bacterial species. Some isolates showed high resistance to Pb, Zn, Cu or Ni. The most tolerated metal was Pb. The results obtained in this study indicate that technosols are a prospective source of new actinomycete species resistant to heavy metals what underlines their bioremediation potential.

Keywords

• streptomyces
• technosols
• heavy metals
• biodiversity