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Title: MINERALIZATION OF THE HERBICIDE ATRAZINE BY A BACTERIAL ISOLATE

Author
item MOSCINSKI, JENNIFER - IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
item JAYACHANDRAN, KRISHNASWAMY - IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
item Moorman, Thomas

Submitted to: Agronomy Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/3/1995
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: A Gram negative, motile, rod-shaped bacterium was isolated by enrichment culture using a basal minimal salts media with sodium citrate and sucrose as C sources and atrazine as the principal N source (BMNA). The inoculum used for the enrichment was a Hord surface soil from a Nebraska site that had been repeatedly exposed to atrazine. A liquid culture of the bacterium grown in BMNA was capable of mineralizing 50 mg L**-1 [U-14C-ring]-atrazine in 72 hours with a concurrent increase in the population size from 6.20x10**6 cells ml**-1 to 3.61x10**8 cells ml**-1. Similar results were achieved when cells grown in tryptic soy broth were used as an inoculum, indicating that mineralization was not repressed by exposure to organic N in the growth medium. When grown in BMNA media without C and N sources, the bacterium degraded the atrazine, but the cell numbers did not increase. Atrazine degradation was not inhibited when NH4NO3 was added to the BMNA media. Chlorinated metabolites were not detected during the atrazine degradation process.