Acclimation of nitrifying biomass to phenol leads to persistent resistance to inhibition

Biocide-tolerance and antibiotic-resistance in community environments and risk of direct transfers to humans: Unintended consequences of community-wide surface disinfecting during COVID-19?

“…Studies on hydrogen peroxide tolerance are relatively scant, although published data suggested that both group A Streptococcus and Escherichia coli could develop tolerance to it over a short period of exposure ( Dukan and Touati, 1996 ; Henningham et al., 2015 ). In addition, other researchers have observed increased bacterial tolerance to phenolic compounds, peroxyacetic acid, isopropanol, and hypochlorous acid ( Horinouchi et al., 2017 ; Nguyen and Yuk, 2013 ; Nontaleerak et al., 2020 ; Zou et al., 2019 ), all of which are used as common active ingredients in current EPA-approved disinfectant products for COVID-19 ( Fig. 1 ).…”

Potential of suspended growth biological processes for mixed wastewater reclamation and reuse in agriculture: challenges and opportunities

“…A schematic illustration of SGBP, employed for wastewater treatment, is presented in Figure 1. Although the SGBP was originally established and operated for the removal of carbonaceous compounds and nutrients in domestic and municipal wastewaters [59], the system has equally shown great potential for the removal of persistent and recalcitrant industrial pollutants by metabolic and co-metabolic degradation pathways [60,61] and adequate biomass acclimation [7]. However, with the very few literature available, there is gap in knowledge regarding the effectiveness of SGBPs for the treatment of mixture of industrial effluents with domestic sewage.…”

“…However, studies have shown that biomass, including nitrifying bacteria, could be engineered/nurtured to develop resistance to toxic substances through microbial adaptations, and consolidate their oxidation reactions/activities for the degradation of recalcitrant organic compounds and nitrification [7,8,109]. Specifically, in the recent study by Zou and co-workers, it emerged that after acclimation to phenol, the biomass became enriched with bacterial populations having phenol-degrading traits and good nitrification activity, thus, achieving high phenol removal and nitrification capacity when utilized in phenol biodegradation studies [7]. It was further highlighted that the adaptation mechanism not only enhanced phenol degradation/removal, but also increased the rate of degradation with total phenol removal in 1.2-h, and by this strategy, nitrifying bacteria were shielded from toxic inhibition [7].…”

“…Biological processes, utilizing the biodegradation capability of different microbial strains, are robust, highly efficient, relatively economical and eco-friendly [6]. Activated sludge-based processes, otherwise referred to as suspended growth biological processes (SGBPs), have been extensively studied for the treatment of industrial effluents and degradation of recalcitrant industrial compounds, and by adequate biomass acclimation, promising results have been reported [7,8]. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the effectiveness of activated sludge-based techniques for the treatment of mixture of industrial effluents with domestic sewage.…”

Isolation, identification and characterization of soil bacteria for the production of ferulic acid through co-culture fermentation using banana stem waste

“…A number of research studies have used acclimated organism in obtaining adapted strains with improved biodegradable characteristic to enhance productivity [31][32][33][34][35][36]. A study conducted by Mate and Pathade [37] found that isolated microbes which earlier subjected to acclimatization with azo dye were usefully treated wastewater containing reactive dyes without giving toxicity of the biodegradation product.…”