Oxygen and Ethene Biostimulation for a Persistent Dilute Vinyl Chloride Plume

Begley, James F.; Czarnecki, Monica; Kemen, Susan; Verardo, Angela; Robb, Amanda K.; Fogel, Samuel; Begley, Gail S.

doi:10.1111/j.1745-6592.2011.01371.x

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The site was contaminated by disposal of material containing PCE at a landfill in 1986, which ultimately resulted in a large, dilute VC plume. Remediation efforts for the plume have involved oxygen and ethene injections and have been described previously (Begley et al 2009(Begley et al , 2012Chuang et al 2010;. The groundwater from these wells was composited; 1 L was shipped to the University of Iowa, where it was stored at 4°C in the dark.…”

Section: Site Information and Groundwater Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elucidating carbon uptake from vinyl chloride using stable isotope probing and Illumina sequencing

Paes

Liu

Mattes

et al. 2015

Appl Microbiol Biotechnol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Vinyl chloride (VC), a known human carcinogen, is a common and persistent groundwater pollutant at many chlorinated solvent contaminated sites. The remediation of such sites is challenging because of the lack of knowledge on the microorganisms responsible for in situ VC degradation. To address this, the microorganisms involved in carbon assimilation from VC were investigated in a culture enriched from contaminated site groundwater using stable isotope probing (SIP) and high-throughput sequencing. The mixed culture was added to aerobic media, and these were amended with labeled ((13)C-VC) or unlabeled VC ((12)C-VC). The cultures were sacrificed on days 15, 32, and 45 for DNA extraction. DNA extracts and SIP ultracentrifugation fractions were subject to sequencing as well as quantitative PCR (qPCR) for a functional gene linked to VC-assimilation (etnE). The gene etnE encodes for epoxyalkane coenzyme M transferase, a critical enzyme in the pathway for VC degradation. The relative abundance of phylotypes was compared across ultracentrifugation fractions obtained from the (13)C-VC- and (12)C-VC-amended cultures. Four phylotypes were more abundant in the heavy fractions (those of greater buoyant density) from the (13)C-VC-amended cultures compared to those from the (12)C-VC-amended cultures, including Nocardioides, Brevundimonas, Tissierella, and Rhodoferax. Therefore, both a previously identified VC-assimilating genus (Nocardioides) and novel microorganisms were responsible for carbon uptake. Enrichment of etnE with time was observed in the heavy fractions, and etnE sequences illustrated that VC-assimilators harbor similar Nocardioides-like etnE. This research provides novel data on the microorganisms able to assimilate carbon from VC.

show abstract

Section: Site Information and Groundwater Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elucidating carbon uptake from vinyl chloride using stable isotope probing and Illumina sequencing

Paes

Liu

Mattes

et al. 2015

Appl Microbiol Biotechnol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Molecular oxygen and ethene were injected into the VC plume at the Carver site to promote VC oxidation, with apparent success (42). Reverse transcription-qPCR (RT-qPCR) evidence of VC oxidizer activity in Carver site groundwater has also been reported (38).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epoxyalkane:Coenzyme M Transferase Gene Diversity and Distribution in Groundwater Samples from Chlorinated-Ethene-Contaminated Sites

Liu

Mattes

2016

Appl Environ Microbiol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Epoxyalkane:coenzyme M transferase (EaCoMT) plays a critical role in the aerobic biodegradation and assimilation of alkenes, including ethene, propene, and the toxic chloroethene vinyl chloride (VC). To improve our understanding of the diversity and distribution of EaCoMT genes in the environment, novel EaCoMT-specific terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) and nested-PCR methods were developed and applied to groundwater samples from six different contaminated sites. T-RFLP analysis revealed 192 different EaCoMT T-RFs. Using clone libraries, we retrieved 139 EaCoMT gene sequences from these samples. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that a majority of the sequences (78.4%) grouped with EaCoMT genes found in VC-and ethene-assimilating Mycobacterium strains and Nocardioides sp. strain JS614. The four most-abundant T-RFs were also matched with EaCoMT clone sequences related to Mycobacterium and Nocardioides strains. The remaining EaCoMT sequences clustered within two emergent EaCoMT gene subgroups represented by sequences found in propene-assimilating Gordonia rubripertincta strain B-276 and Xanthobacter autotrophicus strain Py2. EaCoMT gene abundance was positively correlated with VC and ethene concentrations at the sites studied. IMPORTANCEThe EaCoMT gene plays a critical role in assimilation of short-chain alkenes, such as ethene, VC, and propene. An improved understanding of EaCoMT gene diversity and distribution is significant to the field of bioremediation in several ways. The expansion of the EaCoMT gene database and identification of incorrectly annotated EaCoMT genes currently in the database will facilitate improved design of environmental molecular diagnostic tools and high-throughput sequencing approaches for future bioremediation studies. Our results further suggest that potentially significant aerobic VC degraders in the environment are not well represented in pure culture. Future research should aim to isolate and characterize aerobic VC-degrading bacteria from these underrepresented groups. Short-chain alkenes (e.g., ethene, propene, and butenes) are common hydrocarbons in the environment, primarily encountered as fossil fuel components or products of living organisms or generated by the chemical industry (1). For instance, ethene is generated by both plants (2) and bacteria (3).Chlorinated alkenes (e.g., vinyl chloride [VC]) are also naturally occurring, albeit at very low levels (4). VC is produced industrially as a monomer for polyvinyl chloride plastics. However, most environmental VC is generated by incomplete anaerobic dechlorination of the widely used solvents tetrachloroethene (PCE) and trichloroethene (TCE) in groundwater, where ethene can also be generated as a complete dechlorination product (1). PCE, TCE, and VC are common groundwater contaminants (5), and sites contaminated with chloroethenes are widely distributed across the United States (6) and elsewhere (1, 7). VC is of particular concern as a known human carcinogen (8).In aerobic bacteria that utilize short...

show abstract

“…due to degradation and adsorption. There are cases where degradation itself leads to (more) toxic compounds, such as tetrachloroethylene (PCE) which is degraded to the moderately toxic trichloroethylene (TCE) which in turn is then degraded to virtually non-degradable and very toxic vinyl chloride (Begley et al, 2012). In such a case, the subsurface community might change within the life span of a contamination, from a left-hand situation in Figure 2 to a right-hand situation where few organisms are able to thrive and be productive, and exchange with better-fed situations is not sufficient to provide the missing electron donors and/or acceptors in manageable time-spans.…”

Section: Significance Of the Interactions And Processes On The Micro mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards an integrated understanding of how micro scale processes shape groundwater ecosystem functions

Schmidt

Cuthbert

Schwientek

2017

Science of The Total Environment

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Oxygen and Ethene Biostimulation for a Persistent Dilute Vinyl Chloride Plume

Cited by 17 publications

References 27 publications

Elucidating carbon uptake from vinyl chloride using stable isotope probing and Illumina sequencing

Elucidating carbon uptake from vinyl chloride using stable isotope probing and Illumina sequencing

Epoxyalkane:Coenzyme M Transferase Gene Diversity and Distribution in Groundwater Samples from Chlorinated-Ethene-Contaminated Sites

Towards an integrated understanding of how micro scale processes shape groundwater ecosystem functions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About