Bioremediation of Mercury through Encapsulation of the Clone Carrying meroperon

Abstract

Mercury (Hg) being one the most toxic element on the earth and its capability to result in neurotoxic disorder has become a serious problem for human health and environmental issues. Methyl mercury is the organic form of the mercury which easily accumulates within the aquatic animals and led to biomagnification in other higher organisms. Hg in the environment is resulted from unregulated discharge of mercury within the environment via numerous industries. Hence, it is crucial to bio-convert the toxic form of mercury to non-toxic form with the useful resource of microbes. One of the pronounced site of mercury contamination reported in India (Panipat) containing 147ppm Hg content, was selected to construct metagenomic library of mer operon using E.coli as host. The clone showed maximum tolerance towards mercury (90ppm) accompanied through effective volatilization (91.89% to 41.23%) for Hg (10-90ppm). The clone was able to efficiently bio-convert Hg in actual contaminated site as well. It was also encapsulated in sodium alginate beads and polyacrylamide gel in order to test its reusability for conversion of Hg.

Keywords

• mercury
• mer operon
• cv-aas
• sodium alginate bead
• polyacrylamide gel entrapment.