An indigenous nosocomial opportunistic pathogen in the degradation of tannery effluent

An indigenous bacterial strain was isolated to degrade the tannery effluent with a drastic reduction in the chemical oxygen demand (COD) level. The isolated strain was identified as uncultured Enterobacter sp. clone NAPY by 16SrRNA gene sequencing. The genus Enterobacter is known to be a nosocomial opportunistic pathogen and often causes hospital-acquired infections. Despite of bearing the ability to cause infections, the culture reduced the COD level from 1427 to 371 (mg/L) which is 74% COD reduction after 28 h of incubation under static condition. UV-Vis spectrophotometric, fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopic and thin layer chromatographic (TLC) analyses confirmed the degradation of the tannery effluent by the uncultured Enterobacter sp. clone NAPY.