Isolation and Identification of indigenous Bacteria from Oil-contaminated Soil in Egypt for Sustainable Used-cooking Oil Bioremediation

Used cooking oil is an abundant and inexpensive renewable resource, yet its improper disposal significantly contributes to serious environmental pollution. Biodegradation, mediated by natural microorganisms, is a key mechanism for eliminating oil wastes from the environment. Microorganisms are capable of transforming toxic compounds into harmless products by secreting lipase enzyme, which offer an efficient solution for rapid pollutant degradation. Therefore, this study was conducted to isolate and characterize a bacterial isolate capable of both lipase production and oil degradation from a contaminated soil sample in Egypt. The bacterial isolate was characterized by Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) as Streptomyces griseus. At 2% used cooking oil concentration, Streptomyces griseus degraded a maximum of 17% of the oil. The isolated strain produced lipolytic activity of 109.10 mU/mL. It can be concluded that, Streptomyces griseus demonstrated the capacity to degrade used cooking oil and exhibited high lipolytic activity.