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Variations of bacterial 16S rDNA phylotypes prior to and after chlorination for drinking water production from two surface water treatment plants

  • Original Paper
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Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

We examined the variations of bacterial populations in treated drinking water prior to and after the final chlorine disinfection step at two different surface water treatment plants. For this purpose, the bacterial communities present in treated water were sampled after granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration and chlorine disinfection from two drinking water treatment plants supplying the city of Paris (France). Samples were analyzed after genomic DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification, cloning, and sequencing of a number of 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. The 16S rDNA sequences were clustered into operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and the OTU abundance patterns were obtained for each sample. The observed differences suggest that the chlorine disinfection step markedly affects the bacterial community structure and composition present in GAC water. Members of the Alphaproteobacteria and Betaproteobacteria were found to be predominant in the GAC water samples after phylogenetic analyses of the OTUs. Following the chlorine disinfection step, numerous changes were observed, including decreased representation of Proteobacteria phylotypes. Our results indicate that the use of molecular methods to investigate changes in the abundance of certain bacterial groups following chlorine-based disinfection will aid in further understanding the bacterial ecology of drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs), particularly the disinfection step, as it constitutes the final barrier before drinking water distribution to the consumer’s tap.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Armel Guyonvarch, Erick Denamur, and Eric Delahaye for their comments and suggestions, and also the staff of EAU DE PARIS for their technical assistance. This work was supported by the Association Nationale de la Recherche et de la Technologie de France (ANRT), the municipal water company EAU DE PARIS, the AQUAPHAGE program of the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR, France), and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, France).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. EAU DE PARIS, 9 rue Schoelcher, 75014, Paris, France

    Jean-Baptiste Poitelon, Michel Joyeux, Bénédicte Welté & Jean-Pierre Duguet

  2. Institut de Génétique et Microbiologie, Université Paris-Sud 11, CNRS UMR 8621, Bâtiment 409, 91405, Orsay, France

    Jean-Baptiste Poitelon, Eric Prestel & Michael S. DuBow

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  1. Jean-Baptiste Poitelon
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  2. Michel Joyeux
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  3. Bénédicte Welté
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Correspondence to Michael S. DuBow.

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Poitelon, JB., Joyeux, M., Welté, B. et al. Variations of bacterial 16S rDNA phylotypes prior to and after chlorination for drinking water production from two surface water treatment plants. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 37, 117–128 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-009-0653-5

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