"Researchers do not make a living by selling articles to peer-reviewed scholarly journals. They write journal articles for impact. A growing number of them realize what this means in the digital age, and decide to authorize FREE online sharing of their peer-reviewed journal articles." READ, DOWNLOAD, SHARE

Characterization of microbial communities in heavy crude oil from Saudi Arabia

http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/806/art%253A10.1007%252Fs13213-014-0840-0.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Farticle%2F10.1007%2Fs13213-014-0840-0&token2=exp=1442119195~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F806%2Fart%25253A10.1007%25252Fs13213-014-0840-0.pdf%3ForiginUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flink.springer.com%252Farticle%252F10.1007%252Fs13213-014-0840-0*~hmac=bef95aefb32c06c8e773ccf1d5acbee4b8669e00d4d932e2f6977328a1f6b0ba
DownloadBy: Majed Albokari; Ibrahim Mashhour; Mohammed Alshehri; Chris Boothman and Mousa Al-Enezi
Annals of Microbiology --- Year 2015; Volume 65; Issue 1; Page95-104

Keywords: Heavy crude oil; Oil sludge; 16S rRNA; PCR amplification; Saudi Aramco oil company

Abstract
The complete mineralization of crude oil into carbon dioxide, water, inorganic compounds and cellular constituents can be carried out as part of a bioremediation strategy. This involves the transformation of complex organic contaminants into simpler organic compounds by microbial communities, mainly bacteria. A crude oil sample and an oil sludge sample were obtained from Saudi ARAMCO Oil Company and investigated to identify the microbial communities present using PCR-based culture-independent techniques. In total, analysis of 177 clones yielded 30 distinct bacterial sequences. Clone library analysis of the oil sample was found to contain Bacillus, Clostridia and Gammaproteobacteria species while the sludge sample revealed the presence of members of the Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Clostridia, Spingobacteria and Flavobacteria. The dominant bacterial class identified in oil and sludge samples was found to be Bacilli and Flavobacteria, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the dominant bacterium in the oil sample has the closest sequence identity to Enterococcus aquimarinus and the dominant bacterium in the sludge sample is most closely related to the uncultured Bacteroidetes bacterium designated AH.KK.