Biotransformation of pharmaceuticals under nitrification, nitratation and heterotrophic conditions

Fernandez-Fontaina, E.; Gomes, Inês B.; Aga, Diana S.; Omil, F.; Lema, Juan M.; Carballa, Marta

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.10.010

Cited by 128 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…While others have identified ammonia oxygenases and nitrite reductases as being involved in microbial PPCP biodegradation 64 , the relative abundances of these gene categories were very low throughout the system. The relative abundance of xenobiotic metabolism gene copies was highest for the sand filter samples at 18,318 for SAND_W and 18,766 for SAND_B (see Supplementary material ST30).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Nevertheless, ammonia oxidizing bacteria have been associated with the biodegradation of some PPCPs, while others have been shown to be degraded by nitrite oxidizing bacteria 64, 65 . The relative abundances of sequences that MEGAN associated with ammonia monooxygenases were very low throughout the system (ranging from 0 to 53 reads), but were highest in the biofilm samples obtained from the HR3 and HR2 tanks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Metagenomic analysis of an ecological wastewater treatment plant’s microbial communities and their potential to metabolize pharmaceuticals

et al. 2016

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Pharmaceuticals and other micropollutants have been detected in drinking water, groundwater, surface water, and soil around the world. Even in locations where wastewater treatment is required, they can be found in drinking water wells, municipal water supplies, and agricultural soils. It is clear conventional wastewater treatment technologies are not meeting the challenge of the mounting pressures on global freshwater supplies. Cost-effective ecological wastewater treatment technologies have been developed in response. To determine whether the removal of micropollutants in ecological wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is promoted by the plant-microbe interactions, as has been reported for other recalcitrant xenobiotics, biofilm microbial communities growing on the surfaces of plant roots were profiled by whole metagenome sequencing and compared to the microbial communities residing in the wastewater. In this study, the concentrations of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) were quantified in each treatment tank of the ecological WWTP treating human wastewater at a highway rest stop and visitor center in Vermont. The concentrations of detected PPCPs were substantially greater than values reported for conventional WWTPs likely due to onsite recirculation of wastewater. The greatest reductions in PPCPs concentrations were observed in the anoxic treatment tank where Bacilli dominated the biofilm community. Benzoate degradation was the most abundant xenobiotic metabolic category identified throughout the system. Collectively, the microbial communities residing in the wastewater were taxonomically and metabolically more diverse than the immersed plant root biofilm. However, greater heterogeneity and higher relative abundances of xenobiotic metabolism genes was observed for the root biofilm.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metagenomic analysis of an ecological wastewater treatment plant’s microbial communities and their potential to metabolize pharmaceuticals

et al. 2016

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“…Previous studies have demonstrated the ability of ammonia oxidizers to transform EE2 using pure cultures and ATUinhibited experiments (Khunjar et al, 2011;Shi et al, 2004;Yi and Harper, 2007) and thus are consistent with our findings. For sulfamethoxazole, a previous stduy found that heterotrophic activity was primarily responsible for sulfamethoxazole biotransformation and lower biotransformation rates were observed in nitrifying conditions (Fernandez-Fontaina et al, 2016).…”

Section: Links Between Nitrification and Pharmaceutical Biotransformamentioning

confidence: 97%

Impact of microbial physiology and microbial community structure on pharmaceutical fate driven by dissolved oxygen concentration in nitrifying bioreactors

Stadler

Love

2016

Water Research

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Operation at low dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations (<1 mg/L) in wastewater treatment could save utilities significantly by reducing aeration energy costs. However, few studies have evaluated the impact of low DO on pharmaceutical biotransformations during treatment. DO concentration can impact pharmaceutical biotransformation rates during wastewater treatment both directly and indirectly: directly by acting as a limiting substrate that slows the activity of the microorganisms involved in biotransformation; and indirectly by shaping the microbial community and selecting for a community that performs pharmaceutical biotransformation faster (or slower). In this study, nitrifying bioreactors were operated at low (∼0.3 mg/L) and high (>4 mg/L) DO concentrations to understand how DO growth conditions impacted microbial community structure. Short-term batch experiments using the biomass from the parent reactors were performed under low and high DO conditions to understand how DO concentration impacts microbial physiology. Although the low DO parent biomass had a lower specific activity with respect to ammonia oxidation than the high DO parent reactor biomass, it had faster biotransformation rates of ibuprofen, sulfamethoxazole, 17α-ethinylestradiol, acetaminophen, and atenolol in high DO batch conditions. This was likely because the low DO reactor had a 2x higher biomass concentration, was enriched for ammonia oxidizers (4x higher concentration), and harbored a more diverse microbial community (3x more unique taxa) as compared to the high DO parent reactor. Overall, the results show that there can be indirect benefits from low DO operation over high DO operation that support pharmaceutical biotransformation during wastewater treatment.

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“…[16][17][18][19][20][21] The action of enzymes on OMPs is poorly investigated, and most studies have focused on oxygenases. [21][22][23] A recent study by Krah et al 24 tested the activity of a cocktail of extracted enzymes from activated sludge towards OMPs. By measuring several TPs and using several enzymatic inhibitors, they concluded that amide hydrolases could be involved in the biotransformation of acetaminophen, acetyl sulfamethoxazole, atenolol and bezafibrate, that oxidoreductases transform 10-OH-carbamazepine and that erythromycin is affected by hydrolases acting on ester bonds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cometabolic Enzymatic Transformation of Organic Micropollutants under Methanogenic Conditions

González-Gil

Carballa

Lema

2017

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been shown to have the biological potential to decrease concentrations of several organic micropollutants (OMPs) in sewage sludge. However, the mechanisms and factors behind these biotransformations, which are essential for elucidating the possible transformation products and to foster the complete removal of OMPs via operational strategies, remain unclear. Therefore, this study investigated the transformation mechanisms of 20 OMPs during the methanogenic step of AD with a focus on the role of acetate kinase (AK), which is a key enzyme in methane production. The results from lab-scale methanogenic reactors showed that this step accounts for much of the reported OMP biotransformation in AD. Furthermore, enzymatic assays confirmed that AK transforms galaxolide, naproxen, nonylphenol, octylphenol, ibuprofen, diclofenac, bisphenol A, and triclosan. Except for galaxolide, for which further studies are required to refine conclusions, the OMP's chemical structure was a determinant for AK action because only compounds that contain a carboxyl or hydroxyl group and have moderate steric hindrance were enzymatically transformed, likely by phosphorylation. For these seven compounds, this enzymatic mechanism accounts for 10-90% of the measured methanogenic biotransformation, suggesting that other active enzymes of the AD process are also involved in OMP biotransformation.

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Biotransformation of pharmaceuticals under nitrification, nitratation and heterotrophic conditions

Cited by 128 publications

References 54 publications

Metagenomic analysis of an ecological wastewater treatment plant’s microbial communities and their potential to metabolize pharmaceuticals

Metagenomic analysis of an ecological wastewater treatment plant’s microbial communities and their potential to metabolize pharmaceuticals

Impact of microbial physiology and microbial community structure on pharmaceutical fate driven by dissolved oxygen concentration in nitrifying bioreactors

Cometabolic Enzymatic Transformation of Organic Micropollutants under Methanogenic Conditions

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