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| Author(s): |
Cynthia Canêdo da Silva
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia |
| Defense date: | 2010-00-00 |
| Examining board members: |
Anete Pereira de Souza;
Fernado Dini Andreote;
Ricardo Henrique Kruger;
Maria Bernadete Amâncio Varesche Silva
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| Advisor: | Valéria Maia Merzel |
| Abstract | |
Refinery wastewater has several toxic compounds that may cause serious damage to life. Phenolic compounds are found in several industrial effluents, including petroleum refinery, and represent a significant environmental toxicity hazard. Therefore, there is a constant need to search for new technologies able to remove and reduce the presence of these substances in wastewater. This study aimed to analyze and explore the microbial diversity present in sludge from refinery wastewater treatment systems through the construction of 16S rRNA genes libraries and metagenomic libraries in fosmid vectors. Sequencing and phylogenetic analyses of libraries showed a highly diverse bacterial community, with predominance of the Proteobacteria phylum, followed by Actinobacteria, Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia, Cloroflexi and Bacteroidetes. The most abundant genera were Thauera, Comamonas, Diaphorobacter and Thiobacillus. Species belonging to these genera are facultative anaerobic and may be involved with the denitrification process, and Thauera and Comamonas species are related with degradation of aromatic compounds. This bacterial diversity reflected in a broad metabolic diversity. Analysis of the metagenomic data derived from pyrosequencing revealed a lot of hits related with biological processes of great relevance for wastewater treatment, such as genes for nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus metabolism, in addition to genes related to the catabolism of aromatic compounds, such as benzoate, biphenyl and phenol. Additionally, sequences representing possible new genes encoding for key-enzymes responsible for the meta-cleavage of phenol and other aromatic compounds, such as phenol hydroxylase and cathecol 2,3-dioxygenase, were found in the fosmid libraries. Finally, high-throughput functional screening of 13,200 clones for hydrolytic enzymes yielded two positive hits for lipase and one for esterase. The data gathered together in this work showed that microbial genomic prospection is an innovative strategy for the wastewater treatment system that may undoubtedly contribute to the knowledge of microorganisms responsible by pollutant degradation. (AU) | |