Isolatable bacteria from soil Able to annihilate the effects of the PFAS, the substances per- and polypluoroalchilic present from cosmetics to food inconsistent, from kitchen utensils to detergents and from there in our waters and in our blood.
A research group of the Catholic University, Campus di Piacenza, would have isolated from a Venetian soil contaminated by Pfas about 20 species of bacteria capable of degrading them, or rather to use them as a source of energy (as a single carbon source).
Coordinated by Professor Edoardo Puglisi of the Faculty of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, the work was carried out in collaboration with the Group of Prof. Giancarlo Renella of the University of Padua and presented at the European Setac conference, the 35/imo annual Meeting of the World Society of Chemistry and Environmental Toxicology.
The study
The reason why the PFAS are called “Eternal pollutants“It is quite simple: the strength of the chemical bond between carbon and fluorine in these molecules makes them hardly biodegradable in the environment.
Now, the researchers from Cattolica have aimed to isolate and identify microorganisms that would be able to degrade the pfas taken from contaminated sites. To do this, they analyzed the microbial diversity in the soils that contain pfas championships in polluted areas of northern Italy, especially in the now well -known and highly contaminated sites of the Veneto, in the provinces of Vicenza and Padua. The experts then united classical microbiology techniques for the isolation of bacteria of interest to Metabarcodinga technique of molecular biology that starts from the sequencing of the whole DNA present in an environmental sample, used to quickly identify the species present, providing indications on the biorisature potential of the PFAS.
We have obtained these bacteria Mangia-Pfas with a process called “enrichment”, which provides for them to grow in soils where they only have PFAS to feed. We already have the complete genomes of these 20 Mangia-Pfas strains-explains Puglisi-and information on the degradation percentages of which everyone is capable.
Subsequently, scholars measured the degradation efficiency of the PFAS, in some cases reaching values above 30%, a very high value for this class of compounds. Tests on several PFAS are now underway, which will follow first vase experiments to verify the restoration skills in more representative conditions.
On the genomic side we are studying better these strains, which belong to well -known genres in the context of biorisature such as Micrococcus, RhanandobacterPseudoxanthomonas e Achromobacter – says Puglisi. These are bacteria easily cultivable in the laboratory and usually not harmful to humans. It is also not excluded that the analysis of the genome can lead to the discovery of genes involved in the biodegradation in the future exploitable at the biotechnological level.
Hopes? According to experts, this type of results could lead from here to come new knowledge on the degradation of the PFAS and contribute to sustainable strategies to reclaim environments contaminated by these substances.
