Microbial communities are dynamic systems that develop depending on the ecological niche in which they survive. Electronic industry effluent, rich in heavy metals and salts is one such ecosystem where diverse heavy metal resistant microbes exist. Taxonomic identification of this microbial community would be interesting as no information on the microbial diversity from electronic industry effluent is available till date. Our paper attempts to characterize the microbial inhabitants of this niche. Culture dependent microbiological methods were used to establish and identify various microbial species from the effluent. Culture independent methods of identification involving biochemical tests and molecular biology based methods like 16 S- r DNA sequencing and lipid analyses (FAME analysis) were also carried out to confirm the identity of isolated species. Our study, first of its kind revealed the presence of a diverse group of resistant aerobic microbes and disclosed a total of ten bacterial and two fungal isolates. All these isolates were found to survive in presence of heavy metals like cadmium, lead and zinc and were resistant to antibiotics like ampicillin, tetracycline, streptomycin, penicillin and chloramphenicol as indicated by their Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations (MIC). Such resistant isolates harbor possibilities of metal adaptive/selective pathways which render them as economically beneficial bio-sorbent alternatives in bioremediation of heavy metals.

微生物群落是动态的系统，其根据生存的生态位而发展。富含重金属和盐的电子工业废水就是这样一种生态系统，其中存在多种抗重金属的微生物。该微生物群落的分类学鉴定将是有趣的，因为迄今为止尚无关于电子工业废水中微生物多样性的信息。我们的论文试图描述这种生态位的微生物种群。使用依赖于培养物的微生物学方法从废水中建立和鉴定各种微生物。还进行了不依赖培养物的鉴定方法，包括生化测试和基于分子生物学的方法，如16 S-r DNA测序和脂质分析（FAME分析），以确认分离物种的身份。我们的研究首次揭示了存在多种抗性需氧微生物，并揭示了总共十种细菌和两种真菌分离株。根据最低抑菌浓度（MIC）的指示，发现所有这些分离株都能在镉，铅和锌等重金属的存在下存活，并且对氨苄西林，四环素，链霉素，青霉素和氯霉素等抗生素具有抗药性。