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. 2025 Sep 26;47(5):116.
doi: 10.1007/s10529-025-03641-0.

Exploring the diversity of produced water bacteria with hydrocarbon-degrading potential using MALDI-TOF MS and multivariate statistical analyses

Maryam Al-Kaabi  1 , Nabil Zouari  2 , Mohammad Yousaf Ashfaq  1 , Mohammad A Al-Ghouti  1
Affiliations

Exploring the diversity of produced water bacteria with hydrocarbon-degrading potential using MALDI-TOF MS and multivariate statistical analyses

Maryam Al-Kaabi et al. Biotechnol Lett. .

Abstract

The success of bioremediation of produced water relies on the use of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria. Hence, the selection of highly tolerant endogenous strains from produced water is crucial to designing successful bioremediation. However, the employed isolation and screening approaches are, in general, long. Integrative and rapid approaches based on microbiological and molecular techniques are now required due to the frequent fluctuation of the composition of the produced water. Here, enrichment cultures at high toxicity followed by protein profiling using MALDI-TOF MS were shown to be efficient in clustering the endogenous hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria and help select the potential candidates. Several bacterial strains (n = 18) were isolated from produced water sampled from Qatar's North Field natural gas production. Fourteen strains were identified as Bacillus cereus (n = 14), and one as Staphylococcus hominis (n = 1) using MALDI-TOF MS. Three strains were identified as Aneurinibacillus humi (n = 2) and Aneurinibacillus aneurinilyticus (n = 1) through ribotyping. The strains were further differentiated based on their protein profiles using MALDI-TOF MS and multivariate statistical analyses. Multivariate analyses (composite correlation index, principal component analysis, and dendrogram) demonstrated substantial diversity among the isolates, highlighting their potential as robust candidates for bioremediation and produced water treatment.

Keywords: Bacterial diversity; Enrichment cultures; Hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria; MALDI-TOF MS; Produced water.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflict of interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
MALDI-TOF protein spectra of the isolates a SBS 1 and b SBS 2 identified as B. cereus
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
MALDI-TOF protein spectrum of the MK2 identified as S. hominis
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
MALDI-TOF protein spectra of the unidentified isolates a MK3, b MK8, and c MK13
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
MALDI-TOF protein spectra of the isolates a) MK11-1 and b MK14, highlighting the differences between them, although both were identified as B. cereus
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Classification of the studied strains using the percentage of variance explained
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Classification of the studied strains using PCA clustering
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Dendrogram of the studied strains based on the protein profiles
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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