title: Study of the effect of the bacterial and fungal communities present in real wastewater effluents on the performance of fungal treatments.
abstract: The use of the ligninolytic fungi Trametes versicolor for the degradation of micropollutants has been widely studied. However, few studies have addressed the treatment of real wastewater containing pharmaceutically active compounds (PhAC) under non-sterile conditions. The main drawback of performing such treatments is the difficulty for the inoculated fungus to successfully compete with the other microorganisms growing in the bioreactor. In the present study, several fungal treatments were performed under non-sterile conditions in continuous operational mode with two types of real wastewater effluent, namely, a reverse osmosis concentrate (ROC) from a wastewater treatment plant and a veterinary hospital wastewater (VHW). In all cases, the setup consisted of two parallel reactors: one inoculated with T. versicolor and one non-inoculated, which was used as the control. The main objective of this work was to correlate the operational conditions and traditional monitoring parameters, such as laccase activity, with PhAC removal and the composition of the microbial communities developed inside the bioreactors. For that purpose a variety of biochemical and molecular biology analyses were performed: phospholipid fatty acids analysis (PLFA), quantitative PCR (qPCR) and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) followed by sequencing. The results show that many indigenous fungi (and not only bacteria, which were the focus of the majority of previously published research) can successfully compete with the inoculated fungi (i.e., Trichoderma asperellum overtook T. versicolor in the ROC treatment). We also showed that the wastewater origin and the operational conditions had a stronger impact on the diversity of microbial communities developed in the bioreactors than the inoculation or not with T. versicolor.
authors.affiliation: Departament d'Enginyeria Química, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), 08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Badia-Fabregat
authors.affiliation: Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), H2O Building, Scientific and Technological Park of the University of Girona, 101-E-17003 Girona, Spain.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lucas
authors.affiliation: Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Jokiniemenkuja 1, FI-01370 Vantaa, Finland.
authors.forename: Tero
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tuomivirta
authors.affiliation: Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Jokiniemenkuja 1, FI-01370 Vantaa, Finland.
authors.forename: Hannu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fritze
authors.affiliation: Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Jokiniemenkuja 1, FI-01370 Vantaa, Finland.
authors.forename: Taina
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pennanen
authors.affiliation: Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), H2O Building, Scientific and Technological Park of the University of Girona, 101-E-17003 Girona, Spain.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Mozaz
authors.affiliation: Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), H2O Building, Scientific and Technological Park of the University of Girona, 101-E-17003 Girona, Spain; Water and Soil Quality Research Group, Department of Environmental Chemistry (IDAEA-CSIC), Jordi Girona 18-26, 08034 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Damià
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Barceló
authors.affiliation: Institut de Química Avançada de (IQAC) CSIC, Jordi Girona 18-26, 08034 Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: gloria.caminal@uab.cat.
authors.forename: Glòria
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Caminal
authors.affiliation: Departament d'Enginyeria Química, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), 08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Vicent
mesh_terms: D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D019149:Bioreactors / Q000382:microbiology; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*; D062065:Wastewater / Q000737:chemistry / Q000382:microbiology*; D014871:Water Microbiology; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity
chemical_list: D062065:Wastewater; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Bioreactor; Microbial communities; Molecular biology; Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhAC); Real effluents; White-rot fungi