Bioremediation of the tobacco waste-contaminated soil by Pseudomonas sp. HF-1: nicotine degradation and microbial community analysis

The highly effective nicotine-degrading bacterium Pseudomonas sp. HF-1 was augmented into the tobacco waste-contaminated soil to degrade nicotine and evaluate the effect of the bioremediation. Comparing with non-adding (NA) systems, the treatments with addition of strain HF-1 (TA) exhibited considerably stronger pollution disposal abilities and higher stability of pH value and moisture content, especially in groups containing a large quantity of tobacco waste. The denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) profiles showed that the Shannon–Wiener index decreased with increasing wastes in the NA treatments, while a gradual increase was found in the TA groups. A comparison of sequences from DGGE bands demonstrated that there were differences in the dominant microbial species between the two treatments, suggesting that strain HF-1 could persist in the soil and enhance the efficiency of tobacco waste disposal. The results of real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) also indicated that strain HF-1 existed in the TA systems and grew with relative high quantities. In conclusion, the nicotine-degrading strain HF-1 played a leading role in the bioremediation of the tobacco waste-contaminated soil and influenced the dynamics and structure of the microbial community.