title: Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction for Microbial Growth Kinetics of Mixed Culture System.
abstract: Microbial growth kinetics is often used to optimize environmental processes owing to its relation to the breakdown of substrate (contaminants). However, the quantification of bacterial populations in the environment is difficult owing to the challenges of monitoring a specific bacterial population within a diverse microbial community. Conventional methods are unable to detect and quantify the growth of individual strains separately in the mixed culture reactor. This work describes a novel quantitative PCR (qPCR)-based genomic approach to quantify each species in mixed culture and interpret its growth kinetics in the mixed system. Batch experiments were performed for both single and dual cultures of Pseudomonas putida and Escherichia coli K12 to obtain Monod kinetic parameters (μmax and Ks). The growth curves and kinetics obtained by conventional methods (i.e., dry weight measurement and absorbance reading) were compared with that obtained by qPCR assay. We anticipate that the adoption of this qPCR-based genomic assay can contribute significantly to traditional microbial kinetics, modeling practice, and the operation of bioreactors, where handling of complex mixed cultures is required.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering, Auburn University, AL 36849, USA.
authors.forename: Ada
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cotto
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering, Auburn University, AL 36849, USA.
authors.forename: Jessica K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Looper
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering, Auburn University, AL 36849, USA.
authors.forename: Linda C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Mota
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul 120-750, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Ahjeong
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Son
mesh_terms: D058491:Bacterial Load / Q000379:methods*; D048168:Escherichia coli K12 / Q000145:classification / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D016958:Pseudomonas putida / Q000145:classification / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Escherichia coli K12; Microbial growth; Monod; Pseudomonas putida; quantitative PCR (qPCR)