Monitoring microbial community function during methane formation in a wastewater treatment**digester

废水的厌氧消化是由微生物群落新陈代谢催化的，导致沉淀颗粒(初级污泥)和絮凝生物质(次级污泥)**转化为潜在**有用的产品，包括沼气的主要成分甲烷(CH4)。商业规模的厌氧消化器**(AD)可以将低生物量转化为CH4，并产生大量的生物固体，而去除这些固体的成本可能很高。实验室规模的研究表明，通过控制微生物群落的结构和功能，有可能大幅增加沼气中的甲烷含量。UBC微生物和免疫学部与温哥华麦德龙公司合作，通过使用**高通量测序方法对不列颠哥伦比亚省里士满卢卢岛污水处理厂的AD和固体接触池(SCT)进行**监测，从而开发微生物洞察力。样本是作为我们之前的Engage项目的一部分收集的，目的是**建立一个支持稳健时间序列分析的样本档案。初步结果表明，在AD和SCT中，微生物群落结构在门水平上保持稳定，但在较低的分类级别上变得更加可变。等级变化在多大程度上影响废水环境中的新陈代谢过程仍有待确定。在AD样本中发现了与已知产甲烷能力的生物体相关的古生菌序列。然而，它们总共只占观察到的**分类群的不到0.5%，这表明甲烷菌种群数量的增加可能是工艺**改进的直接目标。我们希望通过Engage Plus计划扩展这项工作，以进一步评估**产甲烷菌和其他介导水解和发酵步骤的分类群之间的平衡。这将**包括比较群落结构分析和整合鸟枪式多体(DNA和RNA)**测序，从而实现以路径为中心的分析，将特定的代谢功能与已识别的分类**组联系起来。

Anaerobic digestion of wastewater is catalyzed by microbial community metabolism resulting in the**conversion of settled particulates (primary sludge) and flocculated biomass (secondary sludge) into potentially**useful products including methane (CH4), a major component in biogas. Commercial-scale anaerobic digesters**(AD), can have low biomass conversion to CH4 and produce significant amounts of biosolids that can be costly**to remove. Bench-scale research has shown evidence of the potential to substantially increase CH4 content of**biogas through the control of microbial community structure and function. In partnership with Metro**Vancouver, UBC's Department of Microbiology & Immunology is developing microbial insights by monitoring**the AD and solids contact tank (SCT) at the Lulu Island wastewater treatment plant in Richmond, BC using**high-throughput sequencing approaches. Samples were collected as part of our previous ENGAGE project to**establish a sample archive supporting robust time series analyses. Preliminary results indicate that microbial**community structure remains stable at the phylum level in both the AD and SCT, but becomes more variable at**lower taxonomic ranks. The extent to which rank variation influences metabolic processes in the wastewater**milieu remains to be determined. Archaeal sequences related to organisms with known capacity for**methanogenesis were identified in the AD samples. However, they collectively represented less than 0.5% of**taxa observed suggesting that enhancement of methanogen population sizes may be a direct target for process**improvement. We would like to extend this work effort through the ENGAGE Plus program to further evaluate**the balance between methanogens and other taxa mediating hydrolysis and fermentation steps. This will**include comparative community structure analysis and the integration of shotgun multi-omic (DNA and RNA)**sequencing enabling pathway-centric analysis linking specific metabolic functions to identified taxonomic**groups.