Bacterial Cell Monitoring in Wastewater Treatment Plants by Flow Cytometry

Abstract

The activated sludge process is performed by a variable and mixed community of microorganisms in an aerobic aquatic environment, in which bacteria constitute the majority and represent the main microorganisms responsible for the degradation process in a plant. In this work, we monitored bacterial charge in different wastewater treatment plants by flow cytometry, also evaluating chlorination effects on bacterial viability, both by flow cytometry and traditional plate counts. Maximum values of bacterial charge were registered in the aeration tank of all plants monitored. Cell viability did not show significant differences ( p . 0.05) in samples collected in ''before chlorination'' and ''wastewater effluent'' treatment steps; this suggests that the chlorination was not able to decrease total viable bacterial charge.In this work, we discuss the need to improve microbiological analyses, both in terms of measuring other potential pathogens and of using new methodological approaches in the traditional evaluation of the microbiological quality of effluents. Water Environ. Res., 80, 346 (2008).

AQMM: Enabling Absolute Quantification of Metagenome and Metatranscriptome

“…The “per cell/volume” quantifying values were the fundamental of normalizing to cells or volume in order to perform comparison among different studies. The cell number per milliliter in literature was at 3.3E+09 using flow Cytometer to quantify(Foladori et al 2010) and was from 2.1E+09 to 5.5E+09 using CFU and flow Cytometer (Manti et al 2008) level for AS which was a bit lower than the obtained number in this study at the magnitude of E+10 cells per milliliter. Overall number of mRNA molecules per cell are 387.98 ± 102.86 and 235.21 ± 30.59 averagely for FAS and NFAS, respectively (Table S1) , which is consistent with previous observation of coastal bacterioplankton by 142-238 mRNA molecules per Cell (Gifford et al 2011, Moran et al 2013).…”

Seasonal bacterial community dynamics in a full-scale enhanced biological phosphorus removal plant

“…lakes and oceans), this ecosystem was relatively unique because of the large biomass concentration (i.e. large population size, ~10 9 cells mL –1 (Manti et al, 2008)) and the relatively stable and rich supplies of carbon source, nutrients, and oxygen. The only measured variable that changed directionally over the course of the study was temperature.…”

Strategies for Water Quality Assessment: A Multiparametric Analysis of Microbiological Changes in River Waters

“…A well‐established approach relies on cell cultivation procedures and selective growth substrates but has a known record of limitations and inaccuracies (e.g. Rompré et al ., ; Manti et al ., ). Although there are disagreements in the governmental regulations in place worldwide, a good microbiological status is generally achieved when the occurrence of selected indicator bacteria is below a standard concentration expressed as the most probable number [MPN colony‐forming unit (CFU)/100 mL] or CFU (CFU/100 mL).…”