Acesulfame Anoxic Biodegradation Coupled to Nitrate Reduction by Enriched Consortia and Isolated Shinella spp.

Yue Huang, Zhong Yu, Lei Liu, You Che, Tong Zhang*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Acesulfame (ACE) is considered to be an emerging pollutant associated with growing concerns. Although aerobic biodegradation of ACE has been observed in wastewater treatment plants worldwide and verified in pure cultures, limited information is available on ACE biodegradation under anoxic conditions, which are ubiquitous in natural environments. Here, we found that ACE could be mineralized completely via a process coupled with nitrate reduction by enriched consortia, with the highest degradation rate of 9.95 mg ACE/g VSS·h-1. Meanwhile, three novel ACE-degrading strains affiliated with Shinella were isolated, examined, and sequenced, revealing that the isolates could utilize ACE as the sole carbon source under both aerobic and anoxic conditions, with maximum degradation rates of 30.3 mg ACE/g VSS·h-1 and 8.92 mg ACE/g VSS·h-1, respectively. Additionally, the biodegradation of ACE was suspected to be a plasmid-mediated process based on comparative genomic analysis. In ACE-degrading consortia, 83 near-complete metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) were obtained via Illumina and Nanopore sequencing, showing that Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes were the dominant phyla. Moreover, nine MAGs affiliated with Hyphomicrobiales were proposed to be the major ACE degraders in the enrichments. This study demonstrated that ACE could be degraded under anoxic conditions, providing novel insights into ACE biodegradation in the environment.

Original languageEnglish
JournalEnvironmental Science and Technology
Volume56
Issue number18
Pages (from-to)13096-13106
Number of pages11
ISSN0013-936X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Sept 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • acesulfame
  • biodegradation
  • denitrification
  • genome-centric
  • Shinella
  • Biodegradation, Environmental
  • Environmental Pollutants
  • Nitrates
  • Thiazines
  • Carbon
  • Sweetening Agents

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