title: Dominant and novel clades of Candidatus Accumulibacter phosphatis in 18 globally distributed full-scale wastewater treatment plants.
abstract: Here we employed quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) assays for polyphosphate kinase 1 (ppk1) and 16S rRNA genes to assess relative abundances of dominant clades of Candidatus Accumulibacter phosphatis (referred to Accumulibacter) in 18 globally distributed full-scale wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) from six countries. Accumulibacter were not only detected in the 6 WWTPs performing biological phosphorus removal, but also inhabited in the other 11 WWTPs employing conventional activated sludge (AS) with abundances ranging from 0.02% to 7.0%. Among the AS samples, clades IIC and IID were found to be dominant among the five Accumulibacter clades. The relative abundance of each clade in the Accumulibacter lineage significantly correlated (p < 0.05) with the influent total phosphorus and chemical oxygen demand instead of geographical factors (e.g. latitude), which showed that the local wastewater characteristics and WWTPs configurations could be more significant to determine the proliferation of Accumulibacter clades in full-scale WWTPs rather than the geographical location. Moreover, two novel Accumulibacter clades (IIH and II-I) which had not been previously detected were discovered in two enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) WWTPs. The results deepened our understanding of the Accumulibacter diversity in environmental samples.
authors.affiliation: Environmental Biotechnology Laboratory, Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Yanping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.affiliation: School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: David W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Graham
authors.affiliation: Bioproduction Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan.
authors.forename: Hideyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tamaki
authors.affiliation: Environmental Biotechnology Laboratory, Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Tong
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D020562:Betaproteobacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing; D017856:Phosphotransferases (Phosphate Group Acceptor) / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D062065:Wastewater / Q000382:microbiology*; D014871:Water Microbiology; D018508:Water Purification
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D017856:Phosphotransferases (Phosphate Group Acceptor); D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D062065:Wastewater; C022424:polyphosphate kinase