Abstract
The biodiversity of acidophilic prokaryotes in two acidic (pH 2.8–3.05) mine drainage (AMD) sites (Balya and Çan) in Turkey was examined using a combined cultivation-based and cultivation-independent approach. The latter included analyzing microbial diversity using fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH), terminal restriction enzyme fragment length polymorphism (`T-RFLP), and quantitative PCR (qPCR). Numbers of cultivatable heterotrophic acidophilic bacteria were over an order of magnitude greater than those of chemolithotrophic acidophiles in both AMD ponds examined. Isolates identified as strains of Acidithiobacillus ferrivorans, Acidiphilium organovorum, and Ferrimicrobium acidiphilum were isolated from the Balya AMD pond, and others identified as strains of Leptospirillum ferriphilum, Acidicapsa ligni, and Acidiphilium rubrum from Çan AMD. Other isolates were too distantly related (from analysis of their 16S rRNA genes) to be identified at the species level. Archaeal diversity in the two ponds appeared to be far more limited. T-RFLP and qPCR confirmed the presence of Ferroplasma-like prokaryotes, but no archaea were isolated from the two sites. qPCR generated semiquantitative data for genera of some of the iron-oxidizing acidophiles isolated and/or detected, suggesting the order of abundance was Leptospirillum > Ferroplasma > Acidithiobacillus (Balya AMD) and Ferroplasma > Leptospirillum > Acidithiobacillus (Çan AMD).
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Akyol Z (2012) Balıkesir-Balya cevherli sahalarının jeolojisi, mineralojisi ve maden potansiyelinin değerlendirilmesi. İstanbul Yerbilimleri Dergisi 3:1–2
Altschul SF, Gish W, Miller W, Myers EW, Lipman DJ (1990) Basic local alignment search tool. J Mol Biol 215:403–410
Anton J, Llobet-Brossa E, Rodriguez-Valera F, Amann R (1999) Fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis of the prokaryotic community inhabiting crystallizer ponds. Environ Microbiol 1:517–523
Baba A, Gurdal G, Sengunalp F, Ozay O (2008) Effects of leachant temperature and pH on leachability of metals from fly ash. A case study: Çan thermal power plant, province of Canakkale, Turkey. Environ Monit Assess 139:287–298
Baker BJ, Banfield JF (2003) Microbial communities in acid mine drainage. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 44:139–152
Baneyx F (1999) Recombinant protein expression in Escherichia coli. Curr Opin Biotechnol 10:411–421
Blowes DW, Ptacek CJ, Jambor JL, Weisener CG, Paktunc, D, Gould, WD, Johnson DB (2013) The geochemistry of acid mine drainage. In: Treatise on Geochemistry, 2nd Edition, Elsevier
Bond PL, Smriga SP, Banfield JF (2000a) Phylogeny of microorganisms populating a thick, subaerial, predominantly lithotrophic biofilm at an extreme acid mine drainage site. Appl Environ Microbiol 66:3842–3849
Bond PL, Druschel GK, Banfield JF (2000b) Comparison of acid mine drainage microbial communities in physically and geochemically distinct ecosystems. Appl. Environ Microbiol 66:4962–4971
Bowei C, Xingyu L, Wenyan L, Jiankang W (2009) Application of clone library analysis and real-time PCR for comparison of microbial communities in a low-grade copper sulfide ore bioheap leachate. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 36:1409–1416
Cole JR, Chai B, Marsh TL, Farris RJ, Wang Q, Kulam SA et al (2003) The Ribosomal Database Project (RDP-II): previewing a new autoaligner that allows regular updates and the new prokaryotic taxonomy. Nucleic Acids Res 31:442–443
Coram NJ, Rawlings DE (2002) Molecular relationship between two groups of the genus Leptospirillum and the finding that Leptospirillum ferriphilum sp. nov. dominates South African commercial biooxidation tanks that operate at 40°C. Appl Environ Microbiol 68:838–845
Coupland K, Johnson DB (2008) Evidence that the potential for dissimilatory ferric iron reduction is widespread among acidophilic heterotrophic bacteria. FEMS Microbiol Lett 279:30–35
Dereeper A, Guignon V, Blanc G, Audic S, Buffet S et al (2008) Phylogeny.fr: robust phylogenetic analysis for the non-specialist. Nucleic Acids Res 1:36 (Web Server Issue): W465–9.0
Edwards KJ, Gihring TM, Banfield JF (1999) Seasonal variations in microbial populations and environmental conditions in an extreme acid mine environment. Appl Environ Microbiol 65:3627–3632
Hallberg KB, Johnson DB (2007) Isolation, enumeration, growth, and preservation of acidophilic prokaryotes. In: Hurst CJ, Crawford RL, Garland JL, Lipson DA, Mills AL, Stetzenbach LD (eds) Manual of Environmental Microbiology, 3rd edn. ASM Press, Washington, DC, pp 1155–1165
Hallberg KB, Gonzalez-Toril E, Johnson DB (2010) Acidithiobacillus ferrivorans, sp. nov.; facultatively anaerobic, psychrotolerant iron-, and sulfur-oxidizing acidophiles isolated from metal mine-impacted environments. Extremophiles 14:9–19
Huber T, Faulkner G, Hugenholtz P (2004) Bellerophon: a program to detect chimeric sequences in multiple sequence alignments. Bioinformatics 20:2317–2319
Inaner H, Karayigit AI (2008) Concentration of major and trace elements in the Miocene lignite from the Çanakkale-Çan coalfiled, Turkey. Energ Source Part A 30:289–296
Johnson DB, Hallberg KB (2003) The microbiology of acidic mine waters. Res Microbiol 154:466–473
Johnson DB, Bacelar-Nicolau P, Okibe N, Thomas A, Hallberg KB (2009) Ferrimicrobium acidiphilum gen. nov., sp. nov. and Ferrithrix thermotolerans gen. nov., sp. nov.: heterotrophic, iron-oxidizing, extremely acidophilic Actinobacteria. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 59:1082–1089
Johnson DB (2012) Geomicrobiology of extremely acidic subsurface environments. FEMS Microb Ecol 81:2–12
Kay CM, Rowe OF, Rocchetti L, Coupland K, Hallberg KB, Johnson DB (2013) Evolution of microbial “streamer” growths in an acidic metal-contaminated stream draining an abandoned underground copper mine. Life doi:10.3390/life3010189#_blank 3:189-211
Kimura S, Bryan CG, Hallberg KB, Johnson DB (2011) Biodiversity and geochemistry of an extremely acidic, low-temperature subterranean environment sustained by chemolithotrophy. Environ Microbiol 13:2092–2104
Kulichevskaya IS, Kostina LA, Valášková V, Rijpstra WIC, Damsté JSS, de Boer W, Svetlana N, Dedysh SN (2012) Acidicapsa borealis gen. nov., sp. nov. and Acidicapsa ligni sp. nov., subdivision 1 Acidobacteria from Sphagnum peat and decaying wood. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 62:1512–1520
Liljeqvist M, Valdes J, Holmes DS, Dopson M (2011) Draft genome of the psychrotolerant acidophile Acidithiobacillus ferrivorans SS3. J Bacteriol 193:4304–4305
Lobos JH, Chisolm TE, Bopp LH, Holmes DS (1986) Acidiphilium organovorum sp. nov., an acidophilic heterotroph isolated from a Thiobacillus ferrooxidans culture. Int J. Syst Bacteriol 36:139–144
Lopez-Archilla AI, Marín I, Amils R (2001) Microbial community composition and ecology of an acidic aquatic environment: the Tinto River, Spain. Microbial Ecol 41:20–35
Snaidr MO, Amann R, Huber I, Ludwig W, Schleifer KH (1997) Phylogenetic analysis and in situ identification of bacteria in activated sludge. Appl Environ Microbiol 63:2884–2896
Thompson JD, Higgins DG, Gibson TJ (1994) CLUSTALW: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice. Nucleic Acids Res 22:4673–4680
Vera M, Schippers A, Sand W (2013) Progress in bioleaching: fundamentals and mechanism of bacterial metal sulfide oxidation-part A. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 97:7529–7541
Wichlacz PL, Unz RF, Langworthy TA (1986) Acidiphilium angustum sp. nov., Acidiphilium facilis sp. nov., and Acidiphilium rubrum sp. nov.: acidophilic heterotrophic bacteria isolated from acicid coal mine drainage. Int J Syst Bacteriol 36:197–201
Zammit CM, Mutch LA, Watling HR, Watkin ELJ (2008) Evaluation of quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction for enumeration of biomining microorganisms in culture. Hydrometallurgy 94:185–189
Zhang R, Wei M, Ji H, Chen X, Qiu G, Zhou H (2009) Application of real-time PCR to monitor population dynamics of defined mixed cultures of moderate thermophiles involved in bioleaching of chalcopyrite. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 81:1161–1168
Acknowledgment
This study is based partly on the PhD thesis of P. Aytar. The study was supported by Eskisehir Osmangazi University Scientific Research Projects Committee (Project No.: 201119018).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Responsible editor: Zhihong Xu
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Supplementary Fig. 1
FISH analysis of Balya and Çan AMD using different oligonucleotide probes (DOCX 2824 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Aytar, P., Kay, C.M., Mutlu, M.B. et al. Diversity of acidophilic prokaryotes at two acid mine drainage sites in Turkey. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 5995–6003 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3789-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3789-4