title: Abundance and diversity of soil petroleum hydrocarbon-degrading microbial communities in oil exploring areas.
abstract: Alkanes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are the commonly detected petroleum hydrocarbon contaminants in soils in oil exploring areas. Hydrocarbon-degrading genes are useful biomarks for estimation of the bioremediation potential of contaminated sites. However, the links between environmental factors and the distribution of alkane and PAH metabolic genes still remain largely unclear. The present study investigated the abundances and diversities of soil n-alkane and PAH-degrading bacterial communities targeting both alkB and nah genes in two oil exploring areas at different geographic regions. A large variation in the abundances and diversities of alkB and nah genes occurred in the studied soil samples. Various environmental variables regulated the spatial distribution of soil alkane and PAH metabolic genes, dependent on geographic location. The soil alkane-degrading bacterial communities in oil exploring areas mainly consisted of Pedobacter, Mycobacterium, and unknown alkB-harboring microorganisms. Moreover, the novel PAH-degraders predominated in nah gene clone libraries from soils of the two oil exploring areas. This work could provide some new insights towards the distribution of hydrocarbon-degrading microorganisms and their biodegradation potential in soil ecosystems.
authors.affiliation: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control (Peking University), College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
authors.forename: Yuyin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jingqiu
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.forename: Shuguang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D000473:Alkanes / Q000378:metabolism*; D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D058448:Biota; D001711:Biotransformation; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011084:Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons / Q000378:metabolism*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017385:Sequence Homology; D012988:Soil Microbiology; D012989:Soil Pollutants / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D000473:Alkanes; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D011084:Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons; D012989:Soil Pollutants