Biphenyl-Metabolizing Microbial Community and a Functional Operon Revealed in E-Waste-Contaminated Soil

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b06647
• Publication Date: 2018-05-07T18:36:59Z
• Authors: Longfei Jiang; Chunling Luo; Dayi Zhang; Mengke Song; Yingtao Sun; Gan Zhang
• Keywords: Ralstonia; Stable-isotope probing

Primitive electronic waste (e-waste) recycling activities release massive amounts of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and heavy metals into surrounding soils, posing a major threat to the ecosystem human health. Microbes capable metabolizing POPs play important roles in remediation but their phylotypes functions remain unclear. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), one main e-waste contaminated have drawn increasing attention due high persistence, toxicity, bioaccumulation. In present study, we employed culture-independent method DNA stable-isotope probing identify active biphenyl PCB degraders e-waste-contaminated soil. A total 19 rare operational taxonomic units three dominant bacterial genera (Ralstonia, Cupriavidus, uncultured bacterium DA101) were enriched 13C fraction, confirming PCBs metabolism. Additionally, 13.8 kb bph operon was amplified, containing bphA gene labeled by that concentrated fraction. The tetranucleotide signature characteristics suggest it originated from Ralstonia. may be shared horizontal transfer because contains transposon is found various species. This study gives us deeper understanding PCB-degrading mechanisms provides potential resource for bioremediation PCBs-contaminated soils.