Polyphasic Analysis Reveals Potential Petroleum Hydrocarbon Degradation and Biosurfactant Production by Rare Biosphere Thermophilic Bacteria From Deception Island, an Active Antarctic Volcano
Type
ArticleAuthors
Schultz, JuniaArgentino, Isabella Campelo Vilardi
Kallies, René
Nunes da Rocha, Ulisses
Rosado, Alexandre S.

KAUST Department
Microbial Ecogenomics and Biotechnology Laboratory, Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi ArabiaBiological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) Division
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)
Bioscience Program
KAUST Grant Number
BAS/1/1096-01-01Date
2022-05-04Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/676673
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Show full item recordAbstract
Extreme temperature gradients in polar volcanoes are capable of selecting different types of extremophiles. Deception Island is a marine stratovolcano located in maritime Antarctica. The volcano has pronounced temperature gradients over very short distances, from as high as 100°C in the fumaroles to subzero next to the glaciers. These characteristics make Deception a promising source of a variety of bioproducts for use in different biotechnological areas. In this study, we isolated thermophilic bacteria from sediments in fumaroles at two geothermal sites on Deception Island with temperatures between 50 and 100°C, to evaluate the potential capacity of these bacteria to degrade petroleum hydrocarbons and produce biosurfactants under thermophilic conditions. We isolated 126 thermophilic bacterial strains and identified them molecularly as members of genera Geobacillus, Anoxybacillus, and Brevibacillus (all in phylum Firmicutes). Seventy-six strains grew in a culture medium supplemented with crude oil as the only carbon source, and 30 of them showed particularly good results for oil degradation. Of 50 strains tested for biosurfactant production, 13 showed good results, with an emulsification index of 50% or higher of a petroleum hydrocarbon source (crude oil and diesel), emulsification stability at 100°C, and positive results in drop-collapse, oil spreading, and hemolytic activity tests. Four of these isolates showed great capability of degrade crude oil: FB2_38 (Geobacillus), FB3_54 (Geobacillus), FB4_88 (Anoxybacillus), and WB1_122 (Geobacillus). Genomic analysis of the oil-degrading and biosurfactant-producer strain FB4_88 identified it as Anoxybacillus flavithermus, with a high genetic and functional diversity potential for biotechnological applications. These initial culturomic and genomic data suggest that thermophilic bacteria from this Antarctic volcano have potential applications in the petroleum industry, for bioremediation in extreme environments and for microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) in reservoirs. In addition, recovery of small-subunit rRNA from metagenomes of Deception Island showed that Firmicutes is not among the dominant phyla, indicating that these low-abundance microorganisms may be important for hydrocarbon degradation and biosurfactant production in the Deception Island volcanic sediments.Citation
Schultz, J., Argentino, I. C. V., Kallies, R., Nunes da Rocha, U., & Rosado, A. S. (2022). Polyphasic Analysis Reveals Potential Petroleum Hydrocarbon Degradation and Biosurfactant Production by Rare Biosphere Thermophilic Bacteria From Deception Island, an Active Antarctic Volcano. Frontiers in Microbiology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.885557Sponsors
Financial support from the National Council for Research and Development (CNPq), National Council for the Improvement of Higher Education (CAPES), and Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research—UFZ. UNR was financed by the Helmholtz Young Investigator grant VH-NG-1248 Micro “Big Data” and ASR by KAUST Baseline Grant (BAS/1/1096-01-01).We thank to Vivian H. Pellizari and Amanda G. Bendia (Microsfera Project, University of São Paulo) for collecting samples on Deception Island and for providing the metagenome raw data. Additionally, to the Brazilian Antarctic Program for logistical support during the Antarctic Operation. We are also grateful to Thiago J. Sousa and Doglas Parise for their assistance with the figures in R, and to Nicole Steinbach and Rodolfo Toscan from Helmholtz UFZ for excellent technical assistance.
Publisher
Frontiers Media SAJournal
Frontiers in MicrobiologyAdditional Links
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.885557/fullae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.3389/fmicb.2022.885557
Scopus Count
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