Rapid biodegradation of atrazine by a novel ZY and its effects on soil native microbial community dynamic.

An atrazine-utilizing bacterium, designated as ZY, was isolated from agricultural soil and identified as . The ZY demonstrated a significant degradation capacity of atrazine, with the degradation efficiency of 12.5 mg L h in liquid media (at pH 7, 30°C, and the atrazine level of 100 mg L). The ZY contained three atrazine-degrading genes (i.e., N, B, and C) could metabolize atrazine to form cyanuric acid, which showed lower biotoxicity than the parent atrazine as predicted by Ecological Structure Activity Relationships model. A laboratory-scale pot experiment was performed to examine the degradation of atrazine by ZY inoculation and investigate its effects on the native microbial communities. The results exhibited that the ZY was conductive to the degradation of atrazine, increased the total soil phospholipid fatty acids at the atrazine level of 50, 70, and 100 mg kg. By using high-throughput sequencing analysis, , , were considered as the most important indigenous atrazine-degrading microorganisms due to their relative abundances were positively correlated with the atrazine degradation rate. In addition, ZY also increased the abundance of atrazine-degrading genus and , indicating that there may be a synergic relationship between them in the process of atrazine degradation. Our work provides a new insight between inoculums and native microorganisms on the degradation of atrazine.