Discovery of naturally produced bioemulsifiers to remediate the next oil spill

发现天然产生的生物乳化剂来修复下一次漏油事件

• 批准号: 2136146
• 负责人: Konstantinos Konstantinidis
• 金额: $ 41.99万
• 依托单位: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2136146&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Discovery; naturally; produced; bioemulsifiers; remediate

Crude oil accidents, either on land or in the ocean, have devastating environmental consequences, especially in pollution-sensitive habitats. Large amounts of oil from the Exxon-Valdez accident in 1989 in Alaska and the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico washed up and were buried in shoreline sediments where they have persisted for decades. Microorganisms are the first to respond to environmental contamination and process most of the oil that enters the environment. However, oil biodegradation may be extremely slow and, as a result, oil ends up sinking and then is buried in sediments. Buried and harmful polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons associated with oils can then be released to the surface during storm events causing further environmental damage. The common emergency response strategy to oil spills is to apply chemical dispersants to facilitate oil dispersion and dissolution. However, such chemicals can have high toxicity to microbes that degrade oil in the environment. Thus, new products are needed. The overarching objective of this project is to develop new, environmentally friendly dispersants, surfactants, and emulsifiers to remediate future oil spills. To achieve this objective, the research team will study the natural emulsifiers produced by coastal bacteria that were discovered in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and then test effective crude-oil degraders. The successful completion of this project will benefit society through the identification of environmentally friendly and effective emulsifiers for crude-oil degradation. Additional benefits to society will be achieved through student education and training including the mentoring of two graduate students at Georgia Tech.Oil spills require millions of liters of chemical dispersants to help remediate damage. Environmentally benign and effective emulsifiers and surfactants are needed to address oil spills where the use of previous chemical dispersants have been banned. The research team has recently reported the metagenome-guided isolation of a novel bacterium, provisionally named Candidatus Macondimonas diazotrophica, that represents a phylogenetically narrow group of previously uncharacterized, crude-oil degraders. These microorganisms are highly abundant in oiled sediments of coastal marine ecosystems across the world, often comprising up to ~30% of the total microbial community, while being low abundance in adjacent, non-contaminated samples. This high abundance in a natural ecosystem suggests unusual physiological capabilities in these microorganisms that confer advantage over other microbes when exposed to oil contamination. The bioinformatic annotation of the Ca. M. diazotrophica genome has revealed several novel biosynthetic clusters that are predicted to produce lipid-based bioemulsifiers and surfactants. The overall goal of this project is to identify and characterize these new bioemulsifiers and test their ability to speed up crude oil biodegradation. The emerging bioremediation technologies will fill a gap in remediation techniques for oil spill-related disasters. These bioemulsifiers are also likely to find applications in enhanced oil recovery from natural habitats as well as in the detergent industry as a replacement for chlorinated solvents. Hence, the broader impacts of the resulting bioemulsifiers and technologies will affect multiple science and engineering disciplines and find several practical biotechnological applications. Students will be trained at the interface of cutting-edge metagenomics and bioinformatics with bioprospecting, chemistry, and engineering. The experience gained from the educational activities will be shared in a workshop with faculty from undergraduate and community colleges during the major undergraduate education conference of the American Society for Microbiology and at the Gulf of Mexico Research Institute annual conference.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

原油事故，无论是在陆地上还是在海洋中，都会对环境造成破坏性后果，特别是在对污染敏感的生境中。1989年在阿拉斯加发生的埃克森-瓦尔迪兹事故和2010年在墨西哥湾发生的深水地平线事故中，大量石油被冲上岸，并被埋在海岸线沉积物中，在那里持续了几十年。微生物是第一个对环境污染作出反应的生物，它们处理了进入环境的大部分石油。然而，石油的生物降解可能非常缓慢，因此，石油最终下沉，然后被埋在沉积物中。在风暴期间，与油类有关的被掩埋的有害多环芳烃会释放到地表，造成进一步的环境破坏。常见的溢油应急响应策略是使用化学分散剂以促进油的分散和溶解。然而，这些化学品对环境中降解石油的微生物具有高毒性。因此，需要新的产品。该项目的总体目标是开发新的环境友好型分散剂、表面活性剂和乳化剂，以补救未来的石油泄漏。为了实现这一目标，研究小组将研究在深水地平线石油泄漏后发现的沿海细菌产生的天然乳化剂，然后测试有效的原油降解剂。该项目的成功完成将通过确定环境友好和有效的原油降解乳化剂而造福社会。通过学生教育和培训，包括指导格鲁吉亚理工学院的两名研究生，将为社会带来更多的好处。石油泄漏需要数百万升的化学分散剂来帮助修复损害。在以前的化学分散剂已被禁止使用的情况下，需要无害环境和有效的乳化剂和表面活性剂来解决漏油问题。该研究小组最近报告了一种新细菌的宏基因组引导分离，暂时命名为Adenidatus Macondimonas diazotrophica，它代表了一组以前未表征的原油降解菌。这些微生物在世界各地的沿海海洋生态系统的含油沉积物中非常丰富，通常占总微生物群落的约30%，而在邻近的未污染样品中丰度较低。这种在自然生态系统中的高丰度表明这些微生物具有不寻常的生理能力，在暴露于石油污染时，这些微生物具有优于其他微生物的优势。对Ca. M. diazotrophica基因组的研究揭示了几种新的生物合成簇，预计这些簇可产生基于脂质的生物乳化剂和表面活性剂。该项目的总体目标是识别和表征这些新的生物乳化剂，并测试它们加速原油生物降解的能力。新兴的生物补救技术将填补溢油灾害补救技术的空白。这些生物乳化剂还可能应用于从自然生境中提高石油回收率，以及在洗涤剂工业中作为氯化溶剂的替代品。因此，所产生的生物乳化剂和技术的更广泛影响将影响多个科学和工程学科，并找到几个实际的生物技术应用。学生将接受前沿宏基因组学和生物信息学与生物勘探，化学和工程的接口培训。从教育活动中获得的经验将在美国微生物学协会的主要本科生教育会议期间和墨西哥湾研究所年度会议上与本科生和社区学院的教师分享。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。