Occurrence and Biodegradation of Pharmaceutical Compound by Using Bacterial Consortium in Urban Lake of Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

Pharmaceutical contaminants are emerging concern, as they are detected in many aquatic systems throughout the world because of their effects on biota and water quality criteria. The main source of contamination includes raw and treated pharmaceutical effluents, hospital waste, and excretion by livestock treated with antibiotics. The continuous exposure to pharmaceuticals increases the emergence of resistant bacterial strains which in turn cause unpredictable effects on human and animal. Hence, the present study evaluates the concentration of pharmaceutical compounds in the urban lake of Madurai city, Tamil Nadu, India and its biodegradation using bacterial consortium. The presence of pharmaceutical compounds were detected from water, sediment and fish samples by solid phase extraction cartridge (strata C18/X) and HPLC techniques. Three different drugs such as ciprofloxacin, ranitidine and sulfamethazole were detected in the samples and high levels of these compounds (43µg/L, 900 µg/L and 30 µg/L) were observed in fish, Channa punctata when compared to other samples. Two isolates, Bacillus sp., and Clostridium sp., were obtained from the sediment samples. Inhibition method was adopted to assess efficacy of the two isolates, as consortium, in degrading the pharmaceutical compounds. The consortium showed a maximum dégradationsof 43.57% after 28^th day of incubation.