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Screening for Microplastics Degrading Bacteria Isolated from the<br />

Gut of Polychaete Namalycastis sp.<br />

Muhammad Addin bin Abd Malik<br />

Supervisor: Dr. Yusof Shuaib Ibrahim<br />

Bachelor of Sciences (Marine Biology)<br />

School of Marine and Environmental Sciences<br />

Microplastics has become one of the globally hot topics as marine ecosystem<br />

pollutant. Since polychaete has a role of bio-indicators of anthropogenic<br />

impacts, it raises high possibility that these polychaete can easily accumulate<br />

the microplastic. In their gut, some bacteria carry out specific interaction<br />

activities for digestion, however, there is still paucity information that these<br />

bacteria can digest the microplastics. Therefore, the aims of this study was to<br />

screens the potential bacteria that are able to degrade the polyethylene. There<br />

are six isolates bacteria from the sample belonging Pseudomonas spp. group<br />

has the ability to degrade the polyethylene by colonizing on the polyethylene<br />

surface observed under Scanning Electron Microscope. Besides that, the<br />

formation of carbonyl group analyzed by Fourier Transform Infrared<br />

Spectroscopy indicates, they were utilized the polyethylene as a sole carbon<br />

source. In conclusion, there is a presence of the polyethylene degrading<br />

bacteria in the gut of Namalycastis sp.<br />

1786 | UMT UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH DAY 2018

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