Screening of Bacterial Isolates from Polluted Soils Exhibiting Catalase and Peroxidase Activity and Diversity of their Responses to Oxidative Stress

For the survival of individual isolates of gram-negative bacteria Pseudomonas putida, Achromobacter xylosoxidans, and the gram-positive bacterium Bacillus megaterium, in an environment polluted with crude oil products, the production of catalases exhibiting both catalase and dianisidine-peroxidase activity is important. Electrophoretic resolution of cell-free extracts of aerobically grown strains in Luria–Bertani medium during exponential phase revealed distinctive expression of catalatic and peroxidatic activities detected with 3,3′-diaminobenzidine tetrahydrochloride. A considerable diversity in microbial catalase and peroxidase responses to 20 or 40 mM H₂O₂ stress, resulted from hydroperoxidase’s variant of original isolates, indicating an environmental selective pressure. However, catalase was important for the adaptation of cultures to high concentration of 60 mM H₂O₂. Appreciable differences in the sensitivity to toxic effect of H₂O₂ (20 or 40 mM) treatment between individual isolates and their adapted variants during growth were observed until the middle of exponential phase, but they were insignificant at the entry to stationary phase. Isolates also exhibited a considerable diversity in catalases responses to phenolic contaminants 1 and 2 mM o- or p-phenylenediamine. Catalase activity of bacterium P. putida was visibly stimulated only by p-phenylenediamine and not by its positional isomer o-PDA. This study contributes to a better understanding of the role catalases play in bacterial responses to a polluted environment.