A Gram-positive, rod-shaped, aerobic bacterial strain isolated from the polluted soil of paper mill contaminated with various heavy metals. The isolated strain was tested for their resistance to different heavy metals (Ni, Cu, Zn and Cd) in various concentrations of (0.1, 0.5, 2.0, 4.0 mM). The relative growths (%) at 2mM concentration were observed as Cu (49.48% )> Ni (40.8%)>Cd (15.33%) > Zn(13.93 %). The heavy metal resistant in the isolated strain was found to be Cu> Ni>Cd>Zn at higher concentrations. The strain showed positive activity towards catalase, starch amylase, Lysine utilization, H2S production and citrate utilization and showed negative activity against ONPG, Urease activity, nitrate reduction, Voges Proskauer’s (VP) test, methyl red and oxidase production. The strain (KC602304) appeared to be most susceptible being inhibited by majority of antibiotics and found resistant towards Ampicillin. In silico study was conducted to understand the major evolutionary relationship among the different species of Leucobacter species of nucleotide sequence of 16s ribosomal RNA with the isolated strain (KC602304) of Leucobacter sp. obtained from Gene Bank.
Heavy metals, Gram (+) bacteria, in silico, 16SrRNA, Gene Bank
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