Opening a functional genomic window on anaerobic wastewater digestion processes at municipal scales

废水的厌氧消化是由微生物群落代谢催化的，导致固体和溶解废物转化为潜在的有用产品，包括甲烷（CH4），也称为沼气，一种高价值的可再生能源和物质资源。不幸的是，商业规模的厌氧消化器存在转换效率低、甲烷产量不稳定以及去除固体残留物成本高的问题。这些限制混淆了盈利能力，主要是由于目前控制消化池环境中微生物代谢通量的能力的限制。高通量测序技术的最新进展使人们能够前所未有地获得废水处理生态系统中个人、群体和社区层面微生物代谢的遗传蓝图。初步调查已经确定了物理和化学参数之间的直接联系，包括加载速率，底物类型，停留时间，温度和金属浓度，以及微生物群落结构和功能。然而，有效的管理和优化策略需要对操作参数、性能指标和微生物群落代谢之间的关系进行及时的洞察。通过与大温哥华地区合作，我们将利用高通量测序方法，对位于不列颠哥伦比亚省里士满的露露岛污水处理厂的厌氧池和固体接触池进行时间序列分析，从而得出这一见解。由此产生的多组学（DNA和RNA）数据集将用于描述微生物群落结构和活性，并模拟代谢潜力。这些信息将与操作参数和性能指标相结合，以促进工艺配置，从而在减少固体的情况下提高ech4收率。大温哥华地区将投资超过100万加元用于试点工厂，并投资1300万加元用于工厂升级，以将厌氧消化池中的甲烷输送到天然气分配设施中。目前的项目是不可或缺的，通过提供必要的数据来模拟和操纵潜在的微生物相互作用，在Lulu岛驱动CH4的生产，最大限度地提高投资回报。

Anaerobic digestion of wastewater is catalyzed by microbial community metabolism resulting in theconversion of solid and dissolved wastes into potentially useful products including methane (CH4), also knownas biogas, a high-value and renewable energy and material resource. Commercial-scale anaerobic digesters,unfortunately, suffer from low conversion efficiencies, variability in CH4 yields and solid residues that can becostly to remove. These limitations confound profitability and arise primarily from limitations in currentcapacity to control microbial metabolic fluxes in the digester milieu. Recent advances in high-throughputsequencing technologies are enabling unprecedented access to the genetic blueprints underlying microbialmetabolism at the individual, population and community levels in wastewater treatment ecosystems. Initialinvestigations have identified direct links between physical and chemical parameters including loading rates,substrate types, residence times, temperature, and metal concentrations, and microbial community structure andfunction. However, effective management and optimization strategies require time-resolved insight into therelationships between operating parameters, performance metrics, and microbial community metabolism. Inpartnership with Metro Vancouver, we will develop this insight through time-series analysis of the anaerobicdigester and solids contact tank at the Lulu Island wastewater treatment plant in Richmond, BC usinghigh-throughput sequencing approaches. Resulting multi-omic (DNA and RNA) data sets will be used toprofile microbial community structure and activity, and model metabolic potential. This information will becombined with operating parameters and performance metrics to promote process configurations that increaseCH4 yields with reduced solids. Metro Vancouver is investing over $1 million CAD in a pilot plant as well as$13 Million CAD into a plant upgrade to feed CH4 from the anaerobic digester into a natural gas distributionfacility. The current project is integral to maximizing return on this investment by providing the data necessaryto model and manipulate underlying microbial interactions driving CH4 production at Lulu Island.