Abstract
Trichloroethylene (TCE) is one of the most common groundwater pollutants. It is carcinogenic, teratogenic, mutagenic and poses a serious threat to human health and the environment. Therefore, reducing the environmental toxicity of TCE is of great significance. Anaerobic sludge was cultured and acclimated in an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor in this study. The Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) concentration of the influent was approximately 2500 mg L−1, and the TCE concentration of the influent ranged from 1.46 mg L−1 to 73 mg L−1. After biodegradation of the anaerobic microflora, the COD removal rate was approximately 85%, and the TCE removal rate was over 85%. The microbial community of anaerobic sludge was analysed by 16 S rDNA clone libray and 454 high-throughput sequencing. Through analysis of the sequencing results, we found that there were a variety of acid-forming bacteria, anaerobic dechlorinating bacteria, and methanogenic bacteria. Based on the analysis of microflora function, it was speculated that the TCE metabolic pathway took place in UASB reactors. Desulfovibrio and Syntrophobacter provided an anaerobic environment, and acid-forming bacteria metabolise organic compounds into hydrogen. With Dehalobacter and Geobacter, TCE as an electron acceptor is dechlorinated and reduced under the anaerobic environment, in which hydrogen acts as an electron donor. By this, we clarified the metabolic pathway for improving TCE bioremediation.
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Data availability
The raw sequencing data have been submitted to the NCBI Sequence Read Archive Databases under accession No. SRA148475.
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This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31500435) and the National Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (41625002); the MOA Modern Agricultural Talents Support Project; Application Technology Research and Development Projects of Harbin (2016RAXXJ103).
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Qingjuan Meng: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Visualization, Writing the original draft. Pengfei Li: Validation, Investigation, Formal analysis. Jianhua Qu: Formal analysis, Data Curation, Writing—Review & Editing. Ying Liu: Resources. Yifan Wang: Resources. Zhaobo Chen: Writing—Review & Editing. Ying Zhang: Conceptualization, Supervision, Funding acquisition.
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Meng, Q., Li, P., Qu, J. et al. Study on the community structure and function of anaerobic granular sludge under trichloroethylene stress. Ecotoxicology 30, 1408–1418 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-020-02343-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-020-02343-9