MONITORING OF ANAEROBIC MICROBIAL COMMUNITY DEGRADING XENOBIOTICS BY SSCP
Eric Trably†, Damien John Batstone†, Nina Christensen†, Dominique Patureau‡ and Jens Ejbye
Schmidt†
†Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Danmark.
‡ Institut National de Recherche Agronomique (INRA), France.
(free)
The aim of this study is to propose an efficient method for monitoring and characterizing the microbial communities degrading xenobiotic compounds in sludge bioreactors without prior knowledge of the community. Here, the phthalic acid esters (PAEs) have been chosen as model of study. Only little is known about microbial communities involved in PAE biodegradation pathways. This study proposes a method to identify and characterize the microbial community associated with PAE degradation. The purpose of this method is to correlate the PAE degradation in continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) with monitoring of the microbial population by single strand confirmation polymorphisms (SSCP). Several main classes of bacteria were found to be clearly involved in the degradation pathway. A probable symbiotic relationship between the archaeal and bacterial populations was seen. Further dynamic monitoring of the microorganisms involved in PAE degradation in bioaugmented sludge reactors is therefore possible by using this method and coupling it to Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization techniques (FISH).
KEYWORDS Anaerobic digestion, Sewage sludge, Single Strand Conformation Polymorphism (SSCP), Xenobiotic
