Identification and characterization of cresol degrading Pseudomonas monteilii strain SHY from Soil samples

Cresol is an organic pollutant discharged by pharmaceutical, pesticide, coal and gasification industries causing severe organ failure in humans. Therefore, it is of interest to isolate microbes from contaminated site for degrading cresol. We isolated a strain (CR-13) that survives at 5000ppm cresol with about 80 percent cresol degradation ability. Immobilized cells showed >99 percent degradation at high concentration of cresol. The 16S rRNA sequence (accession number: MF278026) deposited in GenBank was used for phylogenetic tree analysis and the strain was grouped under Pseudomonas monteilii. The isolated cresol degrading strain was subsequently named as Pseudomonas monteilii SHY.