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The impact of electron donors and anode potentials on the anode-respiring bacteria community

  • Environmental biotechnology
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Abstract

Both anode potentials and substrates can affect the process of biofilm formation in bioelectrochemical systems, but it is unclear who primarily determine the anode-respiring bacteria (ARB) community structure and composition. To address this issue, we divided microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) into groups, feeding them with different substrates and culturing them at various potentials. Non-turnover cyclic voltammetry indicated that the extracellular electron transfer components were uniform when feeding acetate, because the same oxidation peaks occurred at − 0.36 ± 0.01 and − 0.17 ± 0.01 V (vs. Ag/AgCl). Illumina MiSeq sequencing revealed that the dominating ARB was Geobacter, which did not change with different potentials. When the MECs were cultured with sucrose and mixed substrates, oxidation peak P3 (− 0.29 ± 0.015 V) occurred at potentials of − 0.29 and 0.01 V. This may be because of the appearance of Unclassified_AKYG597. In addition, oxidation peak P4 (− 0.99 ± 0.01 V) occurred at high and low potentials (0.61 and − 0.45 V, respectively), and the maximum current densities were far below those of the middle potentials. Illumina MiSeq sequencing showed that fermentation microorganisms (Lactococcus and Sphaerochaeta) dominated the biofilms. Consequently, substrate primarily determined the dominating ARB, and Geobacter invariably dominated the acetate-fed biofilms with potentials changed. Conversely, different potentials mainly affected fermentable substrate-fed biofilms, with dominating ARB turning into Unclassified_AKYG59.

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Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 51478431), the Science and Technology Planning Project from the Science and Technology Department in Zhejiang Province (grant number LQ17E080002), the Innovative and Entrepreneurial Training Plan of National College Students (grant number GJ201623003), and the Xinmiao Talent Project in Zhejiang province (grant numbers 2016R408030, 2016R408028).

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Author notes

  1. Xianbin Ying and Kun Guo are co-first authors; they contributed equally to the work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, 310012, China

    Xianbin Ying, Wei Chen, Yuan Gu, Dongsheng Shen, Yuyang Zhou, Yuxiang Liang, Yanfeng Wang, Meizhen Wang & Huajun Feng

  2. Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Solid Waste Treatment and Recycling, Hangzhou, 310012, China

    Wei Chen, Dongsheng Shen, Yuyang Zhou, Yuxiang Liang, Yanfeng Wang, Meizhen Wang & Huajun Feng

  3. Center for Microbial Ecology and Technology, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Kun Guo

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  1. Xianbin Ying
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  2. Kun Guo
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  3. Wei Chen
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  4. Yuan Gu
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  8. Yanfeng Wang
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  10. Huajun Feng
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Correspondence to Huajun Feng.

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This paper does not contain studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Ying, X., Guo, K., Chen, W. et al. The impact of electron donors and anode potentials on the anode-respiring bacteria community. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 101, 7997–8005 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-017-8518-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-017-8518-8

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