Screening of fungi isolated from textile industry effluents around Bangalore for decolorization of VAT blue 4 and Reactive red 2 dyes

This study focuses on isolating fungi that have the ability to decolorize the textile dyes Reactive Red 2 and VAT Blue 4. The enrichment of fungi capable of decolorizing the dyes was achieved by inoculating the medium with effluents from the textile industry. The enrichment medium was then plated on solid medium to obtain isolates. In all, 21 isolates exhibited the potential of decolorizing Reactive red 2 and 25 showed the ability of decolorizing VAT blue 4, post enrichment for a duration of 21 days. The isolates were exposed to 3 rounds of screening with increasing dye concentrations of respective dyes in potato dextrose broth medium. At the end of 3 rounds of screening, 2 isolates showing maximum decolorization of VAT Blue 4 and 2 isolates demonstrating maximum decolorization of Reactive Red 2 were selected. All the isolates were morphologically and microscopically examined. These would be studied for their bioremediation potential.