Abstract:
This invention is a process for the preparation of talc based formulation for LDPE-degrading bacterial consortia. The process comprises preparing an active consortium. The active consortium is divided into four parts in centrifuge tubes. The tubes are spun at 5000 rpm. A supernatant is decanted from the tubes. The tubes are vortexed. Talc is added to each tube. The tubes with talc are again vortexed for some time to produce a homogeneous mixture. The mixture is poured into glass dishes. The dishes are kept at room temperature as aseptically for drying.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention relates to a process for the preparation of talc based formulation for LDPE-degrading bacterial consortia. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Carrier based formulation of microbial cells has long been established for applications in various fields like agriculture (Meyer, 2003; Trivedi and Anita Pandey, 2008; Trivedi et al., 2005), pharmaceutical (Tanaka et al 1993, Frokjaer and Hovgaard, 2000) and industrial (Tanaka et al., 1993) sectors. The aim of formulating viable cells to facilitate the delivery and handling processes and to ensure that adequate cell viability is sustained to increase the efficacy of the cells (Filho et al., 2001). Importance of native strains and ecological specificity while selecting the microbial inoculates for a specific environment is also realized (Pandey et al., 1998). For bioremediation purposes, formulated microbial cells are often applied using wet (liquid) formulations i.e by spraying inoculums suspensions on targeted sites, or using dry (solid) formulations where granules or dust are sprayed instead (Brar et al., 2006). The selection on the type of formulation developed and used is dependent on the nature of the active cells and factors related to the site of application such as application to aquatic or terrestrial landscapes, temperature, etc (Tu and Randall, 2005; Sabaratnam and Traquair, 2001). Most often, dry formulations are generally preferred over wet formulations because they provide extended shelf life and are easier to store and transport. In agriculture, various carriers have been used for the protection of bioinoculants such as alginate beads, charcoal, sand, sawdust and sugarcane bagasse, etc (Arora et al., 2008). Biodegradation of petrol by bacterial formulated with bentonite-based formulations has been reported by Ting et al, 2010. Plastic materials are widely used in industry, agriculture and day-to-day life. Because of their high durability, they accumulate in the environment at the rate of 25 million tons per year(Orhan and Buyukgungor, 2000). Thermoplastics are inert materials whose backbones consist of only long carbon chains. Their high hydrophobic level and high molecular weight characteristic structure makes them non-biodegradable. However, some microorganisms have been reported to utilize polyolefins with low molecular weight (Yamada-Onodera et al., 2001). The resistance of polyethylene to biodegradation stems for its high molecular weight, three-dimensional structure, and hydrophobic nature (Hadad et al, 2005) and lack of functional groups recognizable by existing microbial enzyme systems (Chiellini et al, 2003). Major strategies to facilitate PE disintegration and subsequent biodegradation, were focused on the direct incorporation of carbonyl groups within the backbone or on their in-situ generation by pre-oxidant additives like polyunsaturated compounds, transition metal ions and dithiocarbamates. These functional groups act as initiators of thermal and photo-oxidation of the hydrocarbon polymer chains (Chiellini et al, 2003), thereby increasing the surface hydrophilicity and facilitating biodegradation by micro-organisms. EI-Shafei et. al (1998) investigated the ability of fungi and  Streptomyces  strains to attack degradable polyethylene bags containing 6% starch. Gilan et al., 2004 isolated a stain of  Rhodococus ruber  that could colonize &amp; degrade PE. Fungal attachment has been reported on the surface of the LDPE pieces buried in soil mixed with sewage for 10 months, indicating possible utilization of plastic as a source of nutrient (Shah et al., 2008). The isolated fungal stains were identified as  Furasium  sp.,  Aspergillus terreus  and  Penicillum  sp, respectively. In another study, two marine microorganisms viz.  Bacillus sphericus  and  Bacilius cereus  have also been recently reported for degradation of LDPE and HDPE (Sudhakar et al., 2008). Further a consortium of  Bacilius cereus, Bacilus pumilus  species and  Anthrobacter  sp was reported to degrade both LDPE as well as HDPE to an extent of nearly 22% within a period of two weeks (Satlewai et al., 2008). Similarly, a consortium of four different bacteria genara, Viz.  Bacterium  Te68R,  Bacillus cereus, Proteobacterium  Sp. and  Anthrobacter luteolus  has been reported to degrade non-poronized and poronized forms of LDPE (Soni et. al., 2009). 
     With a view of developing microbial inoculants for LDPE biodegradation, the described bacterial strains were isolated and have been reported earlier (Satlewel et al, 2008; Soni et al, 2008; Negi et al, 2009; Kapri et al, 2010 Sah et al, 2010; Kapri et al 2010) by our group. 
     OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION 
     An object of this invention is to propose a process for the preparation of talc based formulation for LDPE—degrading bacterial consortia. 
     Further objective of this invention is to propose a talc based formulation for determining shelf life of consortia during storage at ambient temperature. 
     Further object of this invention is to propose a talc based formulation for testing biodegradation efficiency and viability at regular intervals during storage. 
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     According to this invention there is provided process for the preparation of talc based formulation for LDPE-degrading bacterial consortia comprising the steps of:
     preparing active consortium   dividing the active consortium into four parts in centrifuge tubes   spinning the tubes at 5000 rpm   decanting the supernatant from the tubes   subjecting the tubes to the step of vortexing,   adding talc to each tube   vortexing the tubes with talc again for some time to produce a homogeneous mixture,   pouring the mixture into glass dishes   keeping the plates at room temperature aseptically   

    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  relates to comparative in vitro LDPE biodegradation assay of H (A) and consortium L (B) initially and after formulation, respectively. 
         FIG. 2  relates to comparative SEM micrographs of LDPE film degraded by consortium H (B and C) and L(D and E) before and after formulation in talc, respectively, by taking pure LDPE film as control (A). Scale bars=10 μm; Magnification=3.00 KX. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     Talc 
     Talc was purchased from HiMedia Lab Pvt Ltd, Mumbai, India. It is composed of Talcum; steatite; Talc, fine powder and Hydrous magnesium silicate. 
     Bacterial Isolates 
     The bacterial cultures were obtained from departmental culture collection of Microbiology, CBSH, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Patnagar, India. The bacterial strains were characterized by 16S rDNA sequencing and identified by similarity scores returned by NCBI-BLAST. The sequences were submitted to NCBI GenBank. The culture was identified as  Microbacterium  sp. strain MK3 (DQ318884)(deposited on Mar. 2, 2012 as identification reference  Microbacterium  sp. (MK3) and Accession No. MCC0001 with the Microbial Culture Collection (MCC) at the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) in Pune University Campus, Ganeshkhind; Pune 411 007, Maharashtra, India),  Pseudomonas putida  strain MK4 (DQ318885) (deposited on Mar. 2, 2012 as identification reference MK4 and Accession No. MCC0002 with the Microbial Culture Collection (MCC) at the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) in Pune University Campus, Ganeshkhind; Pune 411 007, Maharashtra, India),  Bacterium  Te68R strain PN12 (DQ423487) (deposited on Mar. 2, 2012 as identification reference  Bacterium  Te68R (PN12) and Accession No. MCC0003 with the Microbial Culture Collection (MCC) at the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) in Pune University Campus, Ganeshkhind; Pune 411 007, Maharashtra, India),  Pseudomonas aeruginosa  strain PS1 (EU741797) (deposited on Mar. 16, 2012 as identification reference  Pseudomonas aeruginosa  (PS1) and Accession No. MCC0005with the Microbial Culture Collection (MCC) at the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) in Pune University Campus, Ganeshkhind; Pune 411 007, Maharashtra, India),  P. putida  strain PW1 (EU741798) (deposited on Mar. 16, 2012 as identification reference  Pseudomonas putida  (PW1) and Accession No. MCC0006 with the Microbial Culture Collection (MCC) at the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) in Pune University Campus, Ganeshkhind; Pune 411 007, Maharashtra, India) and  P. aeruginosa  strain C1 (EU753182) (deposited on Mar. 16, 2012 as identification reference  Pseudomonas aeruginosa  (C1) and Accession No. MCC0004 with the Microbial Culture Collection (MCC) at the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) in Pune University Campus, Ganeshkhind; Pune 411 007, Maharashtra, India). Based on preliminary nutritional screening, these were developed into two different consortia in groups of three: consortium H comprising of MK3, MK4, and PN12 strains; and consortium L comprising of PS1, PW1 and C1 strains (Table 1) The medium used for consortium preparation was nutrient broth (HiMedia) containing gm per liter: 7.0 K 2H PO 4 ; 2.0 KH 2 PO 4 ; 0.5 Na 3 C 6 H 5 O 7 ; 0.1(NH 4 ) 2  SO 4  and 0.1mg SO 4.7 H 2 O (Hi Media, Mumbai, India). An aliquot of 200 ml was withdrawn from glycerol stocks and the cultures were revived by inoculating into 5.0 ml Nutrient Broth (Hi Media, India) test tubes at their optimum pH (7±0.02) and temperature (37±1° C.), respectively. 
                               TABLE 1                   BACTERIAL STRAINS USED IN THIS STUD            Bacterial Strains   Consortia                 Microbacterium  sp. strain MK3 (DQ318884),   Consortium H         Psudomonas putida  Strain MK4 (DQ318885),  Bacterium         Te 68R PN12 (DQ423487)         Psudomonas aeruginosa  strain PS1 (EU741797),   Consortium L         P. Putida  strain PW 1 (Eu741798),  P. aeruginosa  strain       C1 (EU753182)                    
Active Consortium Preparation
 
     A single colony form each strain bacterial strain was inoculated in 10 ml Nutrient Broth and incubated at optimum pH (7±0.02) and temperature (37±1° C.) for overnight (12 h) with continuous shaking (120 rpm) until an OD of 0.6 was attained at 600 nm [OD 600 ]. Absorbance was recorded by using UV-Vis Spectrophotometer (Perkin Elmer, Lambda 35). The individual strains of each consortium (H&amp;L) were mixed at equal proportions of the order of 35×10 5  (H) and 2.0×10 7  (L) colony forming units respectively and added into 200 ml nutrient broth. The broth was incubated at 37° C. and 120 rpm till the stationary phase was over (Goel et al., 561/Del/2010). 
     Development of Talc Based Formulation 
     Active consortium (200 ml) was divided into four parts, 50 ml each in centrifuge tubes and spin at 5000 rpm for 10 min. Later supernatant was partially decanted and the tubes were vortexed for 15 min. Then, 2.5 gm talc was weighed and added to each tube with pellets under sterile conditions. With a sterile spatula, the mixture is then emptied into glass petri-plates. The plates were kept at room temperature (28±1° C.) aseptically. 
     Enumeration of Shelf Life/Viability 
     The viability of bacterial isolates in the formulation was ascertained by serial dilution method. 50 mg of talc based formulation was dissolved in 1 ml of sterile distilled water in an eppendorf tube. Later, 10 μl of suspension was dissolve in 990 μl of sterilized distilled water. Likewise dilution plating of 10 −6  and 10 −7  was done for consortium H and L, respectively in nutrient agar medium. The plates were incubated at 37±1° C. and viability was checked initially after 2 and 4 days. Thereafter, the cfu/ml counts were determined after regular interval of 7 days for subsequent 3 weeks, followed by 15 days&#39; interval till 70 th  day. The above pattern was followed keeping in view the rapidity of changes in viable counts. The plate count was carried out in triplicates and the final cfu/ml were the average of the three readings. 
                                                                             TABLE 2                   EUMERATION OF TOTAL VIABLE COUNT OF RESPECTIVE CONSORTIA UNDER       FORMULATION                Dilution   Cfu/ml* at subsequent time intervals (days)            Consortia   Factor   2 nd     4 th     11 th     18 th     25 th     40 th     55 th     70 th                 Consortium H   10 6     279 ± 2   276 ± 2   271 ± 2   269 ± 2   267 ± 2   269 ± 2   269 ± 2   270 ± 2       Consortium L   10 7     174 ± 2   174 ± 2   130 ± 2   127 ± 2   116 ± 2    77 ± 2    54 ± 2    32 ± 2                    
Testing of Biodegradation Efficiency
 
     For the biodegradation assay, 100 ml Minimal broth Davis w/o dextrose (pH 7.0±0.2) was taken in 250 ml Erlenmeyer flasks containing four LDPE film coupons (1 square inch). The flasks were inoculated with 300 μl of active consortium and the assay was performed with respective positive (minimal broth+consortia) and negative (minimal broth+LDPE) controls. The flasks were incubated at 37° C. with continuous shaking (120 rpm) and recovered after the stationary growth phase of the consortium was over. (Satlewal et al; 2008, Kapri et al, 2010 a, b). Degraded LPDE films were further confirmed for biodegradation using SEM (Goel et al 561/Del/2010).