Abstract
Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are two major pollutants present in aquaculture wastewater, and their concentrations often do not meet discharge standards. In the present study, the N and P removal efficiency of nutrient-deficient cells (S group) was significantly higher than that of photoautotrophic cells (P group) and heterotrophic cells (H group). After incubation with wastewater, the N and P content of S group cells was significantly increased and reached a level similar to that of the P group and H group cells after 6 days of treatment. Additionally, in the S group cells, the content of total fatty acids (TFAs), which can be used to supply energy and organic carbon for N and P absorption, significantly decreased. In addition, the protein and nucleic acid contents of the S group cells also significantly increased, which revealed the biosynthetic flow of assimilated N and P. Comparative transcriptome analysis showed that compared with the P group and H group, the N metabolism, ribosome, RNA polymerase, and fatty acid degradation pathways were significantly upregulated in the S group cells, and the fatty acid biosynthesis pathway was significantly downregulated, which was in agreement with the biochemical results. In summary, our study showed that N- and P-starved heterotrophic cells are ideal for use in wastewater N and P removal processes.
Keypoints
• The N and P removal efficiencies of the S group were higher than P and H groups
• Fatty acids were degraded to supply energy and carbon for N and P absorption
• N metabolism and fatty acid degradation pathways were upregulated in the S group
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All data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and within its supplementary materials published online.
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Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the Advanced Talents Incubation Program of the Hebei University (Project No.: 521000981360), The Natural Science Foundation of Hebei province (C2020201044), Project of Hebei Agricultural Innovation Team of Freshwater Aquaculture (HBCT2018180203).
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ZZ and GWZ designed the research. GWZ, LYM, ZXW, and FZX performed the experiments. GWZ and LYM analyzed the data. GWZ wrote the manuscript. ZZ and GYQ revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Gao, W., Guan, Y., Li, Y. et al. Treatment of nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewater by heterotrophic N- and P-starved microalgal cell. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 107, 1477–1490 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-023-12380-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-023-12380-z