VATIS UPDATE Article

The Malabar Botanical Garden and Institute of Plant Sciences (MBGIPS), India, and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), India, has joined hands to launch field trials of oil-degrading bacteria in Kochi. The scientists will undertake the trail to establish the oil-degrading properties of three new strains of bacteria. The oil-degrading properties of these bacteria will pave the way for the development of bioremediation agents to clean up petroleum pollutants from the environment.

The three new strains including two species of Burkholderia and one species of Pseudomonas have been sequenced and submitted to the Genbank database on organisms. Scientists at MBGIPS have completed the sequencing of a new species of oil-degrading soil fungi belonging to the Paecilomyces genus. They have also isolated 110 dye-yielding and anti-microbial compounds from two species of bryophytes (lower group of plants like mosses and hornworts). Besides, 30 anti-bacterial compounds have also been isolated from two species of lichens.