Environmental Microbiome Engineering and Biotechnology Laboratory, Center for Environmental Engineering Research, Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Department of Energy, Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Nat Commun. 2021 Sep 13;12(1):5398. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-25678-1.
As one of the largest biotechnological applications, activated sludge (AS) systems in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) harbor enormous viruses, with 10-1,000-fold higher concentrations than in natural environments. However, the compositional variation and host-connections of AS viruses remain poorly explored. Here, we report a catalogue of ~50,000 prokaryotic viruses from six WWTPs, increasing the number of described viral species of AS by 23-fold, and showing the very high viral diversity which is largely unknown (98.4-99.6% of total viral contigs). Most viral genera are represented in more than one AS system with 53 identified across all. Viral infection widely spans 8 archaeal and 58 bacterial phyla, linking viruses with aerobic/anaerobic heterotrophs, and other functional microorganisms controlling nitrogen/phosphorous removal. Notably, Mycobacterium, notorious for causing AS foaming, is associated with 402 viral genera. Our findings expand the current AS virus catalogue and provide reference for the phage treatment to control undesired microorganisms in WWTPs.
作为最大的生物技术应用之一，污水处理厂（WWTP）中的活性污泥（AS）系统中蕴藏着大量的病毒，其浓度比自然环境中高 10-1000 倍。然而，AS 病毒的组成变化和宿主联系仍未得到充分探索。在这里，我们报告了来自六个 WWTP 的约 50000 种原核病毒目录，将 AS 病毒的描述物种数量增加了 23 倍，并显示了大部分未知的极高病毒多样性（总病毒连续体的 98.4-99.6%）。大多数病毒属在多个 AS 系统中都有代表，其中 53 种在所有系统中都有发现。病毒感染广泛涵盖了 8 个古菌和 58 个细菌门，将病毒与好氧/厌氧异养生物以及其他控制氮/磷去除的功能微生物联系起来。值得注意的是，臭名昭著的导致 AS 泡沫的分枝杆菌与 402 种病毒属有关。我们的发现扩展了当前的 AS 病毒目录，并为利用噬菌体处理来控制 WWTP 中不需要的微生物提供了参考。
