LAUSR

Heavy metals such as cadmium have dangerous effects on ecosystem and human health. In this study, the bacteria diversity of soil samples of coal, salt and aluminum mines and water sample of Mareh wetland of Iran were investigated and their potential to cadmium removal was assessed. Based on partial sequencing of 16S region, the 64 isolates were identified that water sample of Mareh wetland showed high bacterial diversity. Among the isolated bacterial, 11 isolates from 10 different genus including Leifsonia sp., Rhodococcus sp., Bacillus sp., Microbacterium sp., Enterobacter sp., Planomicrobium sp., Microbacterium sp., Thalassospira sp., Brevundimonas sp., Halomonas sp. and Micrococcaceae sp. (could grow under 50 mg/L CdCl2) were selected to consider the cadmium bioremediation potential. The Microbacterium oxydans CM3 and Rhodococcus sp. AM1 as new strains exhibited high ability to removal of cadmium and also degraded 58 and 39% of 400 mg/L lead after 72 h of incubation, respectively. Our result revealed that M. oxydans strain CM3 as natural way has a great potential for absorbing and degrading the heavy metal such as cadmium and lead.