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Characterization of microbial compositions in a thermophilic chemostat of mixed culture fermentation

  • Bioenergy and biofuels
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Abstract

The microbial community compositions of a chemostat enriched in a thermophilic (55 °C) mixed culture fermentation (MCF) for hydrogen production under different operational conditions were revealed in this work by integrating denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), Illumina Miseq high-throughput sequencing, and 16S rRNA clone library sequencing. The results showed that the community structure of the enriched cultures was relatively simple. Clones close to the genera of Thermoanaerobacter and/or Bacillus mainly dominated the bacteria. And homoacetogens and archaea were washed out and not detected even by Illumina Miseq high-throughput sequencing which supported the benefit for hydrogen production. On the other hand, the results revealed that the metabolic shift was clearly associated with the change of dominated bacterial groups. The effects of hydrogen partial pressure (PH2) and pH from 4.0 to 5.5 on the microbial compositions were not notable and Thermoanaerobacter was dominant, thus, the metabolites were also not changed. While Bacillus, Thermoanaerobacter and Propionispora hippei dominated the bacteria communities at neutral pH, or Bacillus and Thermoanaerobacter dominated at high influent glucose concentrations, consequently the main metabolites shifted to acetate, ethanol, propionate, or lactate. Thereby, the effect of microbial composition on the metabolite distribution and shift shall be considered when modeling thermophilic MCF in the future.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51408530, 50978244), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2015 T80233), the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (E2015203306), the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of Hebei Province (B2014003008), the National Hi-Technology Development 863 Program of China (2011AA060901), the Hundred-Talent Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (wk2060190040).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hebei Key Laboratory of Applied Chemistry, School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, Hebei, 066004, People’s Republic of China

    Fang Zhang, Jing-Hua Yang, Kun Dai, Qiu-Rong Li & Fa-Ming Gao

  2. CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, People’s Republic of China

    Fang Zhang, Yun Chen & Raymond J. Zeng

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  1. Fang Zhang
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  2. Jing-Hua Yang
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  3. Kun Dai
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Correspondence to Fang Zhang or Raymond J. Zeng.

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Zhang, F., Yang, JH., Dai, K. et al. Characterization of microbial compositions in a thermophilic chemostat of mixed culture fermentation. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 100, 1511–1521 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-7130-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-7130-z

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