Hexavalent Chromium Reduction by Anoxybacillus rupiensis isolated From Hot Water Spring of Dhapoli, Maharashtra, India

The first representative of the genus Anoxybacillus, A. pushchinoensis was described by Pikuta as strictly anaerobic and an emended description of the species was published later on Pikuta according to which this species should be considered as aerobic anaerobe and the genus Anoxybacillus should be emended to aerobic anaerobes and facultative anaerobes. Although the name of the genusAnoxybacillus means ‘‘without oxygen Bacillus’’, according to Pikuta, most of the species described grow well aerobically and even for some species anaerobic growth was registered only under certain conditions.The Bacillacea family members are good source of bacteria for bioprocessing and biotransformation involving whole cells or enzymes. In contrast to Bacillus and Geobacillus, Anoxybacillus is relatively new genus that was proposed in the year 2000. Because these bacteria are alkali tolerant thermophiles, they are suitable for many industrial applications.

More than a decade after the first report of Anoxybacillus, knowledge accumulated from fundamental and applied studies suggest that the genus can serve as a good alternative in many applications related to environmental waste water treatment, dye degradation enzyme technology, and possibly bioenergy production. There are many reports regarding the reduction of Cr (VI) which is soluble and toxic form into Cr (III) insoluble non- toxic form by mesophilic aerobic bacteria. A great deal of work has been carried out on aerobic reduction of Cr (VI) by Pseudomonas sp. Literature survey has confirmed only few reports on reduction of Cr (VI) by aerobic thermophilic bacteria. This generated interest to check the potential of the isolated aerobic thermophilic bacteria for Cr (VI) reduction. Generally, aerobic bacteria when grown under anerobic conditions, Cr (VI) serves as a terminal electron acceptor.

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