Efficient management of the nitritation-anammox microbiome through intermittent aeration: absence of the NOB guild and expansion and diversity of the NOx reducing guild suggests a highly reticulated nitrogen cycle

Alejandro Palomo; Daniela Azevedo; María Touceda-Suárez; Carlos Domingo-Félez; A Gizem Mutlu; Arnaud Dechesne; Yulin Wang; Tong Zhang; Barth F Smets

doi:10.1186/s40793-022-00432-2

Efficient management of the nitritation-anammox microbiome through intermittent aeration: absence of the NOB guild and expansion and diversity of the NOx reducing guild suggests a highly reticulated nitrogen cycle

Environ Microbiome. 2022 Jul 22;17(1):39. doi: 10.1186/s40793-022-00432-2.

Authors

Alejandro Palomo^{1

2}, Daniela Azevedo¹, María Touceda-Suárez^{1

3}, Carlos Domingo-Félez¹, A Gizem Mutlu^{1

4}, Arnaud Dechesne¹, Yulin Wang⁵, Tong Zhang⁵, Barth F Smets⁶

Affiliations

¹ Microbial Ecology and Technology Lab, Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs Lyngby, Denmark.
² School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China.
³ Department of Environmental Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
⁴ Hydrotech - Veolia Water Technologies, Vellinge, Sweden.
⁵ Environmental Microbiome Engineering and Biotechnology Laboratory, Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
⁶ Microbial Ecology and Technology Lab, Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs Lyngby, Denmark. bfsm@dtu.dk.

Abstract

Obtaining efficient autotrophic ammonia removal (aka partial nitritation-anammox, or PNA) requires a balanced microbiome with abundant aerobic and anaerobic ammonia oxidizing bacteria and scarce nitrite oxidizing bacteria. Here, we analyzed the microbiome of an efficient PNA process that was obtained by sequential feeding and periodic aeration. The genomes of the dominant community members were inferred from metagenomes obtained over a 6 month period. Three Brocadia spp. genomes and three Nitrosomonas spp. genomes dominated the autotrophic community; no NOB genomes were retrieved. Two of the Brocadia spp. genomes lacked the genomic potential for nitrite reduction. A diverse set of heterotrophic genomes was retrieved, each with genomic potential for only a fraction of the denitrification pathway. A mutual dependency in amino acid and vitamin synthesis was noted between autotrophic and heterotrophic community members. Our analysis suggests a highly-reticulated nitrogen cycle in the examined PNA microbiome with nitric oxide exchange between the heterotrophs and the anammox guild.

Keywords: Ammonia; Anammox; Brocadia; Nitric oxide; Nitritation; Nitrite; Nitrosomonas.

Abstract

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