Metabolism Dependent Chemotaxis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa N1 Towards Anionic Detergent Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate

Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) is one of the most commonly used detergent, which exhibits excellent biocidal activity against various bacteria and fungi. It is commonly employed in many detergent formulations and is employed for disinfection purposes. It is shown to be toxic to fishes, aquatic animals and is also inhibitory to microbes and cyanobacteria. We had isolated a strain belonging to Pseudomonas aeruginosa N1, from a detergent contaminated pond situated in Varanasi city India, which was able to degrade and metabolize SDS as a source of carbon. In the present investigation, we have studied chemotactic response of this strain towards SDS. The results clearly indicate that this strain showed chemotactic response towards SDS. The nature of chemotaxis was found to be metabolism dependent as glucose grown cells showed a delayed chemotactic response towards SDS. This is first study that reported chemotaxis response for P. aeruginosa towards anionic detergent SDS.