9^th Biotechnology Congress

Biography

Biography: Fuad Ameen

Abstract

Mangrove sediments 25km south of Jeddah city on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia from surface soil were collected from different localities, which was contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons. Twenty Fungal isolates belonging to 12 genera were recovered and three of these isolates were found to be able to grow in association with petroleum oil as sole carbon source under in vitro conditions. These isolates were identified as Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Eupenicillium hirayamae and Paecilomyces variotii, using 18S rDNA gene analysis. The three isolates high potential to degrade petroleum hydrocarbons by co-cultivation under aeration on a rotary shaker. As compared to the controls, these fungi accumulated significantly higher biomass, produced extracellular enzymes and liberated larger volumes of CO2. These observations with Gas chromatography data confirming that these strains could be interesting to use in future field tests. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report describing the ability of Eupenicillium hirayamae species to biodegrade petroleum compounds and is the first research documenting high diversity of marine fungi from mangrove sediments on the Red Sea Coast of Saudi Arabia.