Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology (2019) 35:184 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-019-2756-0 ORIGINAL PAPER In vitro toxicological evaluation of domestic efuent treated by formulated synthetic autochthonous bacterial consortium Tithi Mehrotra 1  · Anuradha Shukla 2  · Rachana Singh 1 Received: 18 July 2018 / Accepted: 2 November 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019 Abstract Supplementation of consortium comprising of aboriginal bacterial species with high degradation capacity can signifcantly enhance the biodegradation process of the domestic wastewater. The present study examined the bioremediation of domestic wastewater using a novel bacterial consortium comprising of fve autochthonous bacterial strains with high potential for reduction in BOD, COD and protein content to 89%, 55% and 86%, respectively after 24 h of incubation. HPLC and GC–MS analyses revealed that the chosen consortium had successfully degraded wide-ranging complex organic compounds, which is crucial in the decontamination of wastewater. Phytotoxicity assay of the efuent exhibited that the seeds of Vigna radiata showed better growth and germination when subjected to wastewater treated by novel bacterial consortium as compared to the seeds exposed to untreated wastewater. Further, raw and treated wastewater were assessed for their genotoxicity with comet assay which displayed the intensity of DNA damage in the Allium cepa root tip cells before and after exposure to treated efuent. It is evident from the demonstrated results that the formulated bacterial consortium can be used successfully in a small-scale wastewater treatment plant. Graphical abstract Keywords Bacterial consortium · Domestic efuent · Genotoxicity · Organic compounds’ degradation · Phytotoxicity Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-019-2756-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Extended author information available on the last page of the article