Organic micropollutants in aerobic and anaerobic membrane bioreactors: Changes in microbial communities and gene expression

Abstract
Organic micro-pollutants (OMPs) are contaminants of emerging concern in wastewater treatment due to the risk of their proliferation into the environment, but their impact on the biological treatment process is not well understood. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the presence of OMPs on the core microbial populations of wastewater treatment. Two nanofiltration-coupled membrane bioreactors (aerobic and anaerobic) were subjected to the same operating conditions while treating synthetic municipal wastewater spiked with OMPs. Microbial community dynamics, gene expression levels, and antibiotic resistance genes were analyzed using molecular-based approaches. Results showed that presence of OMPs in the wastewater feed had a clear effect on keystone bacterial populations in both the aerobic and anaerobic sludge while also significantly impacting biodegradation-associated gene expression levels. Finally, multiple antibiotic-type OMPs were found to have higher removal rates in the anaerobic MBR, while associated antibiotic resistance genes were lower.

Citation
Organic micropollutants in aerobic and anaerobic membrane bioreactors: Changes in microbial communities and gene expression 2016 Bioresource Technology

Acknowledgements
The authors thank Y. Mao for providing the Perl scripts used for OTU sequence analysis and gene database information extraction. This study was partially funded by the KAUST Academic Partnership Program grant (PID 7000000105) and by the KAUST Center Competitive Funding Program grant (FCC/1/1971-06-01) awarded to P.-Y. Hong.

Publisher
Elsevier BV

Journal
Bioresource Technology

DOI
10.1016/j.biortech.2016.07.036

PubMed ID
27441825

Additional Links
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960852416310008

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