Isolation and Screening of a native Citrobacter sp. with high nicotine-tolerant and its application as a biocatalyst for biodegradation of nicotine

Nicotine is a toxic plant alkaloid and it has been designated as hazardous by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) since 1994. The present work was directed to screen nicotine resistant bacteria, that is used as biocatalyst in the biodegradation of nicotine from contaminated sites. Collected soil samples from 12 tobacco farms were selected as target sites for sampling. Enrichment nicotine-degrading bacteria were performed in minimal salt media containing nicotine as the sole carbon and nitrogen sources. Agar dilution plate method was performed for determining intrinsic tolerance of bacterial isolates to nicotine. Phenotypic characterization and phylogenetic analysis were used to identify the selected bacterial isolate able to degrade nicotine. To determine the optimal conditions for the bio-removal of nicotine, the effects of initial nicotine concentration, incubation time and the addition of carbon and nitrogen sources in the selected strain were tested. The quantification of residual nicotine in the culture media was measured by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Among 20 bacterial isolates for degradation of nicotine, the strain TPS2 showed a high level of resistance and degradation efficiency. Results of phenotypic identification and phylogenetic analysis showed the native strain TPS2 belongs to the Citrobacter sp. strain TPS2 (GeneBank accession no. KM110046). According to the results of de-nicotination experiment, the native strain TPS2 is able to remove 100% of nicotine with an initial concentration 2.5 g/l in the presence of 2.5 g/l fructose.Discussion and The results showed that the screened Citrobacter sp. was suitable candidate for degradation of nicotine from wastewater and sites that contaminated with nicotine. It is seemed by using of the microbial biocatalyst the ecosystem contamination of toxic nicotine can be decreased. The present work is the first report on the degradation of nicotine by native microorganisms.