title: Comparative metagenomics of biogas-producing microbial communities from production-scale biogas plants operating under wet or dry fermentation conditions.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Decomposition of biomass for biogas production can be practiced under wet and dry fermentation conditions. In contrast to the dry fermentation technology, wet fermentation is characterized by a high liquid content and a relatively low total solid content. In this study, the composition and functional potential of a biogas-producing microbial community in an agricultural biogas reactor operating under wet fermentation conditions was analyzed by a metagenomic approach applying 454-pyrosequencing. The obtained metagenomic dataset and corresponding 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequences were compared to the previously sequenced comparable metagenome from a dry fermentation process, meeting explicitly identical boundary conditions regarding sample and community DNA preparation, sequencing technology, processing of sequence reads and data analyses by bioinformatics tools.
  
  
  RESULTS
  High-throughput metagenome sequencing of community DNA from the wet fermentation process applying the pyrosequencing approach resulted in 1,532,780 reads, with an average read length of 397 bp, accounting for approximately 594 million bases of sequence information in total. Taxonomic comparison of the communities from wet and dry fermentation revealed similar microbial profiles with Bacteria being the predominant superkingdom, while the superkingdom Archaea was less abundant. In both biogas plants, the bacterial phyla Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Spirochaetes and Proteobacteria were identified with descending frequencies. Within the archaeal superkingdom, the phylum Euryarchaeota was most abundant with the dominant class Methanomicrobia. Functional profiles of the communities revealed that environmental gene tags representing methanogenesis enzymes were present in both biogas plants in comparable frequencies. 16S rRNA gene amplicon high-throughput sequencing disclosed differences in the sub-communities comprising methanogenic Archaea between both processes. Fragment recruitments of metagenomic reads to the reference genome of the archaeon Methanoculleus bourgensis MS2(T) revealed that dominant methanogens within the dry fermentation process were highly related to the reference.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although process parameters, substrates and technology differ between the wet and dry biogas fermentations analyzed in this study, community profiles are very similar at least at higher taxonomic ranks, illustrating that core community taxa perform key functions in biomass decomposition and methane synthesis. Regarding methanogenesis, Archaea highly related to the type strain M. bourgensis MS2(T) dominate the dry fermentation process, suggesting the adaptation of members belonging to this species to specific fermentation process parameters.
authors: Institute for Genome Research and Systems Biology, CeBiTec, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße 25, D-33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
authors: Yvonne
authors: Y
authors: Stolze
authors: QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute Herston, 300 Herston Road, Brisbane, QLD 4006 Australia.
authors: Martha
authors: M
authors: Zakrzewski
authors: Institute for Genome Research and Systems Biology, CeBiTec, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße 25, D-33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
authors: Irena
authors: I
authors: Maus
authors: Institute for Genome Research and Systems Biology, CeBiTec, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße 25, D-33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
authors: Felix
authors: F
authors: Eikmeyer
authors: Bioinformatics Resource Facility, CeBiTec, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße 25, D-33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
authors: Sebastian
authors: S
authors: Jaenicke
authors: NORTH-TEC Maschinenbau GmbH, Oldenhörn 1, 25821 Bredstedt, Germany.
authors: Nils
authors: N
authors: Rottmann
authors: Institute for Genome Research and Systems Biology, CeBiTec, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße 25, D-33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
authors: Clemens
authors: C
authors: Siebner
authors: Institute for Genome Research and Systems Biology, CeBiTec, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße 25, D-33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
authors: Alfred
authors: A
authors: Pühler
authors: Institute for Genome Research and Systems Biology, CeBiTec, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße 25, D-33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
authors: Andreas
authors: A
authors: Schlüter
keywords: 16S rRNA; Biogas; Dry fermentation; Fragment recruitment; Metagenomics; Methanoculleus bourgensis; Methanogenesis; Microbial communities; Wet fermentation