Abstract
Zoxamide, a class IV hazardous fungicide, is perilous for the environment due to its highly persistent nature. Up till the current date, there are no reports on the biodegradation of zoxamide. The scarcity of knowledge in this domain led to the present research to evaluate the biodegradation of this benzamide fungicide by three bacterial strains, Escherichia coli (EC), Streptococcus pyogenes (SPy), and Streptococcus pneumoniae (SP). Biotransformation of zoxamide was scrutinized in nutrient broth assemblies for a period of 28 days followed by UV-visible spectrophotometer and GC-MS analysis of the metabolites. The results exhibited a low to medium biodegradation potential of the bacterial cells to metabolize zoxamide. The highest biotransformation percentage was observed by E. coli to be 29.8%. The order of half-life calculated for the degradation results was EC (42.5) < SPy (58.7) < SP(67.9) days. GC-MS analysis indicated the formation of several metabolites including, 2-(3,5-dichloro-4-methylphenyl)-4-ethyl-4-methyl-4H-1,3-oxazin-5(6H)-one, 3,5-dichloro-N-(3-hydroxy-1-ethyl-1-methyl-2-oxopropyl)-4-methylbenzamide and 3,5-dichloro-4-methylbenzamide. The research could influence the biotreatment strategies for the environmentally friendly eradication of xenobiotics.