Biostimulation of Microbial Communities from Malaysian Agricultural Soil for Detoxification of Metanil Yellow Dye; a Response Surface Methodological Approach

In the present study, a mixed culture from a local agricultural soil sample was isolated for Metanil Yellow (MY) dye decolorization. The metagenomic analysis confirmed that 42.6% has been dominated by genus Bacillus , while Acinetobacter (14.0%) is present in the microbial communities of the mixed culture. For fungi diversity analysis, around 97.0% was “unclassified” fungi and 3% was Candida. The preliminary investigation in minimal salt media (MSM) showed that 100% decolorization was achieved after 24 h of incubation. Response surface methodology (RSM) was successfully applied using Box-Behnken design (BBD) to study the effect of four independent parameters—MY dye concentration, glucose concentration, ammonium sulfate concentration, and pH—on MY dye decolorization by the mixed bacterial culture. The optimal conditions predicted by the desirability function were 73 mg/L of MY, 1.934% glucose, 0.433 g/L of ammonium sulfate, and a pH of 7.097, with 97.551% decolorization The correlation coefficients (R 2 and R 2 adj) of 0.913 and 0.825 indicate that the established model is suitable to predict the effectiveness of dye decolorization under the investigated condition. The MY decolorization of the mixed bacterial culture was not affected by the addition of heavy metals in the growth media. Among the 10 heavy metals tested, only copper gave 56.19% MY decolorization, whereas the others gave almost 100% decolorization. The decolorization potential of the mixed bacterial culture indicates that it could be effective for future bioremediation of soil-contaminated sites and treatment solutions of water bodies polluted with the MY dye.