Mitigation of membrane biofouling in membrane bioreactor treating sewage by novel quorum quenching strain of Acinetobacter originating from a full-scale membrane bioreactor

Shamas Tabraiz; Burhan Shamurad; Evangelos Petropoulos; Marcos Quintela-Baluja; Alex Charlton; Jan Dolfing; Paul J Sallis

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125242

Mitigation of membrane biofouling in membrane bioreactor treating sewage by novel quorum quenching strain of Acinetobacter originating from a full-scale membrane bioreactor

Bioresour Technol. 2021 Aug:334:125242. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125242. Epub 2021 May 1.

Authors

Shamas Tabraiz¹, Burhan Shamurad², Evangelos Petropoulos², Marcos Quintela-Baluja², Alex Charlton³, Jan Dolfing⁴, Paul J Sallis²

Affiliations

¹ School of Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UK. Electronic address: shamastabraiz2@gmail.com.
² School of Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UK.
³ School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UK.
⁴ Faculty of Engineering and Environment, Northumbria University, Newcastle NE1 8QH, UK.

PMID: 33964813
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125242

Abstract

A novel quorum quenching (QQ) strain, Acinetobacter guillouiae ST01, was isolated from a full-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) and characterized for its QQ activities. Batch reactor studies at lab-scale showed that A. guillouiae ST01 exhibited higher QQ activity against acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs) with an oxo group compared to those without an oxo group. The organism was then inoculated (10%) in an MBR (Q-MBR) treating sewage over 48 days and was found to reduce quorum sensing (QS) activity by reducing AHL concentrations in the sludge and the biofilm of the Q-MBR. The concentration of polysaccharides was reduced up to 30% in both the biofilm and sludge relative to the control, whereas protein concentrations were reduced by 40% and 47% in the sludge and biofilm, respectively. The Q-MBR fouling rates were halved. These results indicate that A. guillouiae ST01 is a promising strain for biofouling reduction in MBR treating real wastewater.

Keywords: Acinetobacter guillouiae; Acyl homoserine lactone; Membrane bioreactor; Quorum quenching; Quorum sensing.