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: 2018
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2018-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=654056
• 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.**

人类的活动导致了环境的广泛污染，从海洋中的油羽到全球各地的垃圾填埋场。这些污染物中的许多可以被环境中的微生物转化，微生物将化合物转化为毒性较低或完全无害的物质。一旦确定，这些微生物活动可用于修复受污染的场地--但绝大多数微生物的代谢潜力仍未得到描述。非营利组织Pure Earth将城市垃圾填埋场列为世界上最严重的污染问题(www.worstpolluted.org/projects_reports/display/100)，中的第五名，反映了垃圾填埋场复杂的污染物分布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，但涉及的微生物、途径和过程知之甚少。*劳拉·胡格博士的研究项目试图定义微生物多样性，并确定污染场地目前未知的代谢功能，尤其是垃圾填埋场。为此，她的研究小组将对城市垃圾填埋场中几个地点的微生物群落的总DNA和RNA进行排序，生成存在哪些微生物以及哪些途径活跃的蓝图。为了开发新的生物修复工具，Hug博士的团队将通过增菌培养来捕捉感兴趣的活动，在实验室中维持一个不那么复杂的微生物群落。通过代谢组学分析建立社区规模的代谢模型，以及在实验室跟踪污染物降解的能力与增菌培养实验相结合，将揭示微生物是如何塑造其环境的。拟议的研究具有相当大的潜力，可以发现可用于修复环境中毒素的微生物活动，帮助清理加拿大受污染的场地和淡水资源。这项工作将为加拿大各地的废物管理政策、补救要求和工业最佳实践提供信息。*除了开发环境补救工具外，拟议的研究还审查了生物学中的基本问题--生物体如何适应受污染地点的恶劣条件？降解人造产品的能力是如何以及何时演变的？微生物群落在哪些方面超过了它们各部分的总和，这些相互作用是否推动了全球循环？这项研究计划将扩大我们对生命之树的理解，同时开发解决方案来解决人类活动对环境的影响。**