The natural capacity for oil degradation of marine environments: towards developing DNA-based biosensors for monitoring low-level oil pollution

石油释放到海洋中会产生严重的环境后果，随着石油和天然气勘探和开采在越来越深的水域进行，深海生态系统受到石油污染影响的威胁越来越大。在2010年深水地平线石油泄漏事件之后，人们发现，在墨西哥湾深处自然存在大量的食油细菌，并在泄漏事件发生后迅速繁殖。通过分解大量的石油，它们可能在清理石油泄漏中发挥了重要的作用，但往往被低估了。如果这一发现对其他深海地区具有代表性，这将意味着1。深海石油污染物存在内在生物修复的潜力。食油细菌数量的变化可以作为监测低水平油类污染的指标，这是目前监测的难点。然而，与墨西哥湾天然的高石油浓度（即食油细菌一直寻找食物的地方）相比，大部分深海缺乏天然的石油碳氢化合物，因此，食油细菌的数量和活性可能要低得多。在这项概念验证研究中，我们将调查英国大陆架和东北大西洋样品中食油细菌的丰度、活性和特性，以及它们最好降解的油成分。我们假设，在这些环境中存在有能力分解石油的细菌，如果石油可以作为食物，它们就会迅速开始繁殖。如果这一假设得到证实，食油细菌的数量，特别是编码石油分解酶的基因，将成为监测低水平石油污染的理想工具，否则很难检测到，我们计划在后续的JIP中收获这一潜力，旨在开发用于监测低水平石油污染的特定位点dna生物传感器。

SummaryThe release of oil into the sea can produce significant environmental consequences, and with oil and gas exploration and extraction occurring in increasingly deeper waters, deep-sea ecosystems are under increasing threat from the effects of oil pollution. In the aftermath of the Deepwater horizon oil spill in 2010 it was found that oil eating bacteria occurred naturally in great numbers in the deep Gulf of Mexico and multiplied very quickly after the spill. By breaking down large amounts of oil they may have played an important and often underestimated role in the cleanup of the oil spill. If this finding was representative for other deep-sea areas, this would imply that 1. there exists a potential for intrinsic bioremediation of oil contaminants in the deep-sea, and that2. changes in the number of oil-eating bacteria could be used as an indicator to monitor low-level oil pollution which currently presents a great difficulty. However, in contrast to the Gulf of Mexico with its naturally high oil concentrations (= where oil-eating bacteria find food all the time), most of the deep-sea is devoid of naturally occurring petroleum hydrocarbons and in consequence the number and activity of oil eating bacteria may therefore be much lower. In this proof-of-concept study we will investigate the abundance, activity and identity of oil-eating bacteria and the oil components they preferably degrade in samples from the UK continental shelf and NE Atlantic. We hypothesize that bacteria with the capacity to break down oil are present in these environments and quickly start to multiply if oil becomes available for food. If this hypothesis is proven, the number of oil eating bacteria, and in particular the genes encoding the enzymes for oil breakdown, would present an ideal tool to monitor for low-level oil pollution that otherwise is difficult to detect, and we plan to harvest this potential in a follow-on JIP aimed to develop site-specific DNA-based biosensors for monitoring low-level oil pollution.