Assessment of soil potential to natural attenuation and autochthonous bioaugmentation using microarray and functional predictions from metagenome profiling

Purpose The use of autochthonous microorganisms for the bioaugmentation of areas contaminated with hydrocarbons has a high potential to overcome the limitations associated with the difficulty of allochthonous microorganisms to adapt. The prediction of bioremediation effects of autochthonous bioaugmentation can be improved by employing the rapid methods of the direct detection of genes crucial to the hydrocarbon biodegradation. This study aimed to evaluate the potential of microflora originating from soils with different levels of anthropogenization for application in autochthonous bioaugmentation by using microarray and functional predictions from metagenome profiling.