In vitro and in silico analysis of Brilliant Black degradation by Actinobacteria and a Paraburkholderia sp

The soil bacteria isolated in this study, including three strains of actinobacteria and one Paraburkholderia sp., showed decolorization activity of azo dyes in the resting cell assay and were shown to use methyl red as the sole carbon source to proliferate. Therefore, their ability to degrade, bioabsorb, or a combination of both was investigated using the substrate brilliant black. The strains DP-A9 and DP-L11, within 24 h of incubation, showed complete biodegradation of 173.54 mg/L brilliant black and the strains DP-D10 and DP-P12 showed partial decolorization of 83.3 mg/L and 36.4 mg/L, respectively, by both biosorption and biodegradation. In addition, the shotgun assembled genome of strains studied included a highly diverse set of genes encoding for candidate dye degrading enzymes, providing avenues to study azo dye metabolism in more detail.