Water Environ Res. 2018 Mar 1;90(3):258-268. doi: 10.2175/106143017X15054988926352. Epub 2017 Sep 29.
Metagenomic analysis is a powerful approach for wholesale characterizations of microbial populations like those that operate within municipal wastewater treatment plants. It is well known that many problems are associated with the overgrowth or undergrowth of specific bacterial genera. We describe a database of the combined metagenomes of activated sludge aeration basins from around the globe and use it as a reference to study the population of a foamy activated sludge aeration basin. We show that foam production is associated with blooms of mycolic acid producing genera, especially Mycobacterium. We confirm this bloom using the acid-fast stain, and we show that genes involved with mycolic acid production are enriched in the foam-producing sample. In addition, we show that this sample has unusual nitrifying populations. We suggest that low-cost DNA sequencing and publicly available tools for shotgun metagenomic analyses, including those described here, might broadly facilitate wastewater treatment plant operation.
宏基因组分析是一种强大的方法，可用于全面描述微生物种群，例如那些在城市污水处理厂中运行的微生物种群。众所周知，许多问题都与特定细菌属的过度生长或生长不足有关。我们描述了一个来自全球各地活性污泥曝气池的组合宏基因组数据库，并将其用作参考来研究泡沫活性污泥曝气池的种群。我们表明，泡沫的产生与产生分枝菌酸的属（特别是分枝杆菌属）的大量繁殖有关。我们使用抗酸染色法证实了这种繁殖，并且表明与分枝菌酸产生有关的基因在产生泡沫的样品中富集。此外，我们表明该样品具有异常的硝化种群。我们建议，包括本文所述的那些在内的低成本 DNA 测序和可公开获取的宏基因组分析工具可能会广泛促进污水处理厂的运行。
