Bioprospecting and Analysis of Metabolic Pathways of Polyphosphate Accumulating Organisms (PAOs) Found in Wastewater Treatment Systems

• Grant number: 24/07066-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2024
• End date: June 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology - Applied Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: Juliana Cardinali Rezende
• Grantee: Gabriel Santana Silva
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas (CCNH). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Santo André , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The use of the Enhanced Biological Phosphorus Removal (EBPR) process, coupled with anaerobic/aerobic wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), stands out for its economic and ecological advantages in recovering phosphorus from wastewater. However, current recovery technologies for this compound still need to reach 100% efficiency levels to reduce contamination in the bodies of water that receive the treated effluent. To achieve this, it is necessary to increase our knowledge about the bacterial communities and their metabolic pathways involved in phosphorus removal in treatment systems. The efficiency of WWTPs with EBPR is linked to high bacterial diversity and the predominance of specific groups of Polyphosphate Accumulating Organisms (PAOs) for complete phosphorus removal. Knowledge about PAOs has been enhanced through new cultivation-independent approaches and by sequencing the microbial diversity in reactors coupled to EBPR, using next-generation sequencers - Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). However, studies related to the phosphorus metabolism in these organisms are still very scarce. Therefore, more research is needed to increase our understanding of the physiology of PAOs, aiming at optimizing the phosphorus removal processes from sewage. Thus, by using different bioinformatics software, systematic literature analysis, and in silico analysis of metagenomic data from samples of different WWTPs and genomes of known PAOs available in databases, this project aims to expand our understanding of the diversity of PAOs, their genes, enzymes, and metabolic pathways involved in phosphorus removal during sewage treatment.