Biotransformation and removal of arsenic oxyanions by Alishewanella agri PMS5 in biofilm and planktonic states

Abstract Arsenic oxyanions are toxic chemicals that impose a high risk to humans and other living organisms in the environment. The present study investigated indigenous heterotrophic bacteria in the tailings dam effluent (TDE) of a gold mining factory. Thirty-seven arsenic resistant bacteria were cultured on Reasoner's 2A agar supplemented with arsenic salts through filtration. One strain encoded as PMS5 with the highest resistance to 140-mM sodium arsenite and 600-mM sodium arsenate in tryptic soy broth was selected for further investigations. According to phenotypic examinations and 16S rDNA sequence analysis, PMS5 belonged to the genus Alishewanella and was sensitive to most of the examined antibiotics. The biosorption and bioaccumulation abilities of arsenic salts were observed in this isolate based on Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis (EDX) and biosorption and bioaccumulation data. PMS5 was also found to cause the volatilization and biotransformation of arsenic oxyanions through their oxidation and reduction. Moreover, the contribution of PMS5 to arsenic (3+, 5+) bioprocessing under oligotrophic conditions was confirmed in fixed-bed reactors fed with the TDE of the gold factory (R1) and synthetic water containing As5+ (R2). According to biofilm assays such as biofilm staining, cell count, detachment assay and SEM, the arsenic significantly reduced the biofilm density of the examined reactors compared to that of the control (R3). Arsenate reduction and arsenite oxidation under bioreactor conditions were respectively obtained as 75.5–94.7% and 8%. Furthermore, negligible arsenic volatilization (1.2 ppb) was detected.