Isolation and identification of boron-accumulating bacteria from contaminated soils and active sludge

High levels of boron are toxic to living organisms. The removal of boron from contaminated water is an important way of dealing with this environmental problem. For this purpose, we screened for bacteria that can absorb high levels of toxic boron from the environment. A range of boron-accumulating bacteria was isolated from boron-contaminated soil in Turkey, from uncontaminated soil in Tokyo, Japan, and from active sludge in Tokyo by semi-quantifying the boron accumulation of each single-cultured bacterium. Intracellular boron concentrations ranged from 0.3 to 1.36 nmol g-1 dry weight. Nineteen isolates identified by 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis were most closely related to the genera Bacillus, Variovorax, Pseudomonas, Shewanella, Mycobacterium and Rhodococcus. To our knowledge, this is the first study examining a wide range of bacterial strains in terms of boron accumulation.