Comparative study on characteristics of azo dye decolorization by indigenous decolorizers

This study provides a first attempt to explore indigenous strains with excellent decolorization capability from the most biodiverse region in Taiwan for dye-bearing wastewater treatment. Bacterial isolates were obtained via serial selections under selection pressure of the fungicide nystatin and model textile dye(s). According to profiles of protein expression and PCR-augmented 16S rRNA gene analyses for strain identification, >99% of nucleotide sequences in isolated strains were identical to type strains Aeromonas hydrophila, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter cancerogenus, Proteus hauseri, Acinetobacter johnsonii. This first-attempt study not only explored most abundant decolorizers in Taiwan, but also compared their color removal performance for further applications.