LAUSR

ABSTRACT Ten indigenous heavy metals resistant bacteria were isolated from the discharged effluent of Biological Sciences building at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. The bacterial strains were isolated using enrichment method in tryptone soya agar (TSA) supplemented with 100 mg/L of Pb, Cd, As, and Ni. All the isolated bacteria showed multiple tolerances to the heavy metals; however, strain GBB 220, which showed a maximum tolerable concentrations (MTCs) of 2000, 1200, 4700, and 1000 mg/L for Pb, Cd, As, and Ni, respectively, was selected for further studies. The bacterium was identified by 16S rRNA sequences as Klebsiella variicola and was subjected to mutational enhancement by acridine orange and ethidium bromide. Eight mutants were recovered, strains K. variicola MutAa–Ad showed improvement in their MTCs of 2500, 2200, and 5000 mg/L for Pb, Cd, and As whereas K. variicola MutEa–Ed had same MTCs as the wild type except for cadmium which increased from 1200 to 1500 mg/L. The antibiotic susceptibility patterns showed that all the strains of K. variicola had multiple resistances to some of the antibiotics. The K. variicola mutants had their optimum pH at 5 and 8 while the wild type had optimum pH at 7 and 8. The cadmium removal efficiency of 97.9% at pH 7, 97.7% at pH 8, and 99.4% at pH 7 was observed for K. variicola Wt, K. variicola Mut Eb, and K. variicola Mut Ac, respectively. These findings suggested that the artificially mutated strains of K. variicola may be applied to remove cadmium from polluted environment.