Microbial community analysis of anaerobic reactors treating soft drink wastewater

PLoS One. 2015 Mar 6;10(3):e0119131. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0119131. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

The anaerobic packed-bed (AP) and hybrid packed-bed (HP) reactors containing methanogenic microbial consortia were applied to treat synthetic soft drink wastewater, which contains polyethylene glycol (PEG) and fructose as the primary constituents. The AP and HP reactors achieved high COD removal efficiency (>95%) after 80 and 33 days of the operation, respectively, and operated stably over 2 years. 16S rRNA gene pyrotag analyses on a total of 25 biofilm samples generated 98,057 reads, which were clustered into 2,882 operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Both AP and HP communities were predominated by Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, and candidate phylum KSB3 that may degrade organic compound in wastewater treatment processes. Other OTUs related to uncharacterized Geobacter and Spirochaetes clades and candidate phylum GN04 were also detected at high abundance; however, their relationship to wastewater treatment has remained unclear. In particular, KSB3, GN04, Bacteroidetes, and Chloroflexi are consistently associated with the organic loading rate (OLR) increase to 1.5 g COD/L-d. Interestingly, KSB3 and GN04 dramatically decrease in both reactors after further OLR increase to 2.0 g COD/L-d. These results indicate that OLR strongly influences microbial community composition. This suggests that specific uncultivated taxa may take central roles in COD removal from soft drink wastewater depending on OLR.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Anaerobiosis
  • Bacteria, Anaerobic / classification*
  • Bacteria, Anaerobic / genetics
  • Bacteria, Anaerobic / isolation & purification*
  • Bioreactors / microbiology*
  • Carbonated Beverages / microbiology*
  • DNA, Bacterial / analysis
  • DNA, Ribosomal / analysis
  • Microbial Consortia
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Phylogeny
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / analysis
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA
  • Waste Disposal, Fluid / methods
  • Wastewater / microbiology*

Substances

  • DNA, Bacterial
  • DNA, Ribosomal
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
  • Waste Water

Grants and funding

This study was supported by PepsiCo Inc., and Masaru Nobu was supported by the Teracon fellowship from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Takashi Narihiro was a visiting scholar from Bioproduction Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan. The funders had no role in design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript in this study.