Evidence for existence of quorum sensing in a bioaugmented system by acylated homoserine lactone-dependent quorum quenching.

The introduction of a gene, strain, or microbial consortium into an indigenous bacterial population is known as bioaugmentation. This technique has been proposed as an effective strategy for accelerating and enhancing the removal of recalcitrant and toxic compounds during wastewater treatment. In this study, three types of reactors were used to test whether quorum sensing plays an important role in bioaugmented systems. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction showed that the inoculated strain, HF-1, successfully colonized in the bioaugmented reactor. Meanwhile, no HF-1 colonization was observed in the quorum-quenching and non-bioaugmented reactors. Removal of nicotine in the bioaugmented reactor was almost 100%, and removal of total organic carbon (TOC) was higher than 50%. However, less than 20% of nicotine and 30% of TOC was removed in quorum-quenching and non-bioaugmented reactors. Moreover, the release of acylated homoserine lactones reached the threshold for HF-1 biofilm formation in bioaugmented reactors but not in quorum-quenching or non-bioaugmented reactors. The addition of porcine kidney acylase I, a quenching reagent, to the quorum-quenching reactor hampered the colonization of HF-1. Together, these results demonstrate that quorum sensing plays an important role in HF-1 colonization of bioaugmented systems.

Bioaugmentation of activated sludge with Acinetobacter sp. TW enhances nicotine degradation in a synthetic tobacco wastewater treatment system.

Bioaugmentation (BA) using Acinetobacter sp. TW with high nicotine-degrading efficiency was applied in a bioreactor receiving a load of COD (3,200 ± 50 mg/L) and nicotine (1.0 ± 0.1g/L). The results showed that because of the colonization of strain TW, the COD removal was stable at 80-90%, while nicotine removal reached 98% in the BA system. Furthermore, according to PCR-DGGE fingerprinting, compared with the originally activated sludge, more bacteria existed in the BA systems while some bacteria disappeared from the non-BA system. In terms of the quorum sensing, short chain AHLs increased to assist colonization of strain TW, and long chain AHLs were secreted and helped to resist the nicotine toxicity. Compared with the non-BA system, the amounts of ROS, protein carbonyls and 8-OHdG were significant lower in the BA systems, which suggested that strain TW played an important role in eliminating the nicotine toxicity from the bioreactors.

Aquatic plant debris improve phosphorus sorption into sediment under anoxic condition.

The effects of plant debris on phosphorus sorption by anoxic sediment were investigated. Addition of plant debris significantly enhanced the decrease of soluble relative phosphorus (SRP) in overlying water at both 10 and 30 °C during the 30-day investigation. Both cellulose and glucose, two typical plant components, also clearly enhanced the SRP decrease in anoxic overlying water. The measurement of phosphorus (P) fractions in sediment revealed that the levels of unstable P forms were decreased by plant debris addition, whereas the opposites were true for stable P forms. However, under sterilized condition, plant debris/glucose addition has no effect on the SRP decrease in overlying water. Overall, our results suggested that plant debris improve P sorption into sediment under anoxic condition through a microorganism-mediated mechanism.