Heavy metal-tolerant bacteria Bacillus cereus BCS1 degrades pyrethroid in a soil–plant system

The heightened concern about the environmental impacts of pollutants drives interest in reducing their threats to humans and the environment. Bioremediating polluted sites under environmental stresses like biotic and abiotic poses significant challenges. This study aimed to isolate a bacterium that effectively degrades pyrethroids even under abiotic stresses involving heavy metals and biotic stresses with autochthonous factors. Here, a bacterial strain, Bacillus cereus BCS1 was isolated. The response surface methodology was established to quantify the environmental impacts on pyrethroid degradation. BCS1 effectively degraded pyrethroids across conditions at 21-36 °C, pH 6.5-8.0 and inoculum sizes 1.9-4.1 mg·L-1, exceeding 90% degradation. Notably, over 84% of β-cypermethrin (β-CP) was degraded even when exposed to various concentrations of lead (10-1000 mg·L-1), chromium (10-1000 mg·L-1), or cadmium (0.5-50 mg·L-1). Moreover, BCS1 significantly accelerated β-CP degradation in soil-plant systems, displaying biotic stress tolerance, with lower half-life values (10.1 and 9.5 d) in soil and higher removal (92.1% and 60.9%) in plants compared to controls (27.7 and 25.7 d), and (18.2% and 24.3%). This study presents a novel strain capable of efficiently degrading pyrethroids and displaying remarkable environmental stress resistance. Findings shed light on bioremediating organic pollutants in complex soil ecosystems.