Man's trash is a microbe's treasure: the diversity and metabolic potential of microorganisms in landfill solid and liquid waste

人类的垃圾是微生物的宝藏：垃圾填埋场固体和液体废物中微生物的多样性和代谢潜力

• 批准号: RGPIN-2016-03686
• 负责人: Hug, Laura
• 金额: $ 2.4万
• 依托单位: University of Waterloo
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2016-01-01 至 2017-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=614552
• 关键词: Man; trash; microbe; treasure; diversity

Mankind’s activities have lead to widespread contamination of the environment, from oil plumes in the oceans to landfills across the globe. Many of these contaminants can be transformed by microorganisms in the environment, which convert the compounds to less toxic or completely innocuous substances. Once identified, these microbial activities can be used to remediate contaminated sites - but the vast majority of microbial metabolic potential remains undescribed. The non-profit organization Pure Earth labeled municipal landfills #5 in the world’s worst pollution problems (www.worstpolluted.org/projects_reports/display/100), reflecting landfills’ complex contaminant profiles and potential impacts on both the environment and human health. Microbial activity within landfills is critical for decomposition of inorganic and organic wastes, but the organisms, pathways, and processes involved are poorly understood. Dr. Laura Hug’s research program seeks to define microbial diversity and identify currently unknown metabolic functions at contaminated sites, with a particular focus on landfills. To that end, her research group will sequence the total DNA and RNA of a microbial community from several locations in a municipal landfill, generating a blueprint of which organisms are present, and which pathways are active. To develop new bioremediation tools, Dr. Hug’s team will capture activities of interest through enrichment culturing, where a less complex microbial community is maintained in the laboratory. The combination of community-scale metabolic modelling through meta-omic analyses and the ability to track contaminant degradation in the laboratory with enrichment culture experiments will uncover how microbes are shaping their environment. The proposed research has considerable potential to discover microbial activities that can be used to remediate toxins in the environment, helping to clean up Canadian contaminated sites and freshwater resources. This work will inform waste management policies, remediation requirements, and industrial best practices across Canada. Beyond developing tools for environment remediation, the proposed research examines essential questions in biology - how do organisms adapt to the harsh conditions at contaminated sites? How and when did the ability to degrade man-made products evolve? In what ways are microbial communities more than the sum of their parts, and do these interactions drive global cycles? This research program will expand our understanding of the tree of life, while simultaneously developing solutions to address the impacts of human activities on the environment.

人类的活动导致了广泛的环境污染，从海洋中的石油羽流到全球的垃圾填埋场。许多这些污染物可以被环境中的微生物转化，将化合物转化为毒性较小或完全无害的物质。一旦确定，这些微生物活动可用于修复污染场地-但绝大多数微生物代谢潜力仍未被描述。非营利组织“纯净地球”将城市垃圾填埋场列为世界上最严重的污染问题第5位（www.worstpolluted.org/projects_reports/display/100），反映了垃圾填埋场复杂的污染物概况以及对环境和人类健康的潜在影响。垃圾填埋场内的微生物活动对无机和有机废物的分解至关重要，但所涉及的微生物，途径和过程知之甚少。