Baby Jooju^1,, Sheela Thangaraj², Senthil Kumar Sadasivam^{1, 3}

Nowadays, pollution is the biggest issue throughout the world. Dyes contaminated effluents from the textile industries are one among the massive thing which requires immediate attention. The present study focused on the biodegradation of an azo dye, Reactive Red 180 using a novel fungal strain Scedosporium apiospermum SKF2. Initially screening of a potential Reactive Red 180 degrading fungi was carried out from the effluent sediment samples collected from a textile industry located at Salem district, Tamil Nadu, India. Among the fourteen different bacterial strains isolated from it, strain no. SKF2 showed the highest dye degrading activity (78.9%). The strain was identified as Scedosporium apiospermum based 18S rRNA sequencing. This strain revealed dye degradation activities from the initial hours of incubation till the end of lag phase and obtained its maximum degradation activities during the trophophase. Phytotoxicity evaluation of the degraded metabolites on Trigonella foenum graecum seeds revealed toxicity free. In the light of above, this novel fungal isolate S. apiospermum SKF2 can plausibly be considered for the effective and eco-friendly biodegradation of the azo dyes like Reactive Red 180.

textile dye, biodegradation, reactive red 180, Scedosporium apiospermum, phytotoxicity