Polyphosphate recovery by a native Bacillus cereus strain as a direct effect of glyphosate uptake

Abstract

Seven bacterial strains isolated from a glyphosate-exposed orange plantation site were exposed to 1 mM N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine supplied as a phosphorus source. While some exhibited good biodegradation profiles, the strain 6 P, identified as Bacillus cereus, was the only strain capable of releasing inorganic phosphate to the culture supernatant, while accumulating polyphosphate intracellularly along the experimentation time. The composition and purity of the intracellular polyphosphate accumulated by the strain 6 P were confirmed by FTIR analysis. To date, the biological conversion of glyphosate into polyphosphate has not been reported. However, given the importance of this biopolymer in the survival of microorganisms, it can be expected that this process could represent an important ecological advantage for the adaptation of this strain to an ecological niche exposed to this herbicide. The polyphosphate production yield was calculated as 4 mg l−1, while the glyphosate biodegradation kinetic constant was calculated on 0.003 h−1 using the modified Hockey–Stick first-order kinetic model, with a half-life of 279 h. Our results suggest that B. cereus 6 P is a potential candidate for the generation of an innovative biotechnological process to produce polyphosphate through the biodegradation of the herbicide glyphosate.

Indirect Effects of the Herbicide Glyphosate on Plant, Animal and Human Health Through its Effects on Microbial Communities

“…Glyphosate effects on microbial composition have been documented convincingly at the genus and species levels (Helander et al, 2018;Nielsen et al, 2018;Romdhane et al, 2019). For example, on Bacillus species, including B. anthracis (Acosta-Cortés et al, 2019;Yu et al, 2015) and Clostridium species, including C. botulinum (Argou-Cardozo and Zeidán-Chuliá, 2018;Gerlach et al, 2014;Krüger et al, 2013;Rodloff and Krüger, 2012) are often less sensitive or insensitive to glyphosate and may accumulate in the environment. Both genera produce survival spores under stress and can survive food and feed processing like pasteurization and fermentation (Driehuis et al, 2018).…”

“…In the past 50 years of glyphosate use, strains of various bacterial species have emerged that can break down the herbicide; these include potential animal/human pathogens (Acosta-Cortés et al, 2019;Fei et al, 2013;Funke et al, 2007;Grube et al, 2019;Liu et al, 2013;Pérez Rodríguez et al, 2019;Priestman et al, 2005;Xu et al, 2019). For instance, glyphosate can be detoxified through N-acetylation by several bacterial species, including Bacillus species like B. cereus and B. anthracis (Acosta-Cortés et al, 2019). Thus, long-term glyphosate use may lead to increased levels of B. anthracis (causal agent of anthrax) in the environment.…”

“…Glyphosate use for agricultural production is now widespread, both in industrialized and developing countries (Benbrook, 2016;Maggi et al, 2020). Globally, about 700 thousand tonnes of glyphosate were applied on 36 million km (Acosta-Cortés et al, 2019) in 2015 (Maggi et al, 2019).…”

Methods for the Analysis of Polyphosphate in the Life Sciences

“…Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy can be used to qualitatively identify polyP. PolyP shows one or several strong peaks in the 1 100–1 400 cm –1 region, which correspond to the PO double bonds, and a minor peak at 3 300 cm –1 , which is caused by the hydroxyl end groups (O–H). − The absence of the 3 300 cm –1 peak can be used to differentiate cyclic and linear polyP. Even the shortest polyPs (polyP 2 and polyP 3 ) can be detected .…”

Microbial Genes of Agricultural Importance in Maize Rhizosphere Unveiled Through Shotgun Metagenomics

“…Bacillariaceae was seen to predominate F1 rather than R1, some species of this bacteria family like the Bacillus cereus are known to be active in phosphorus metabolism. Bacillus cereus secretes different phospholipases which helps in phosphate retrieval metabolisms, it has been noted also for its ability to produce polyphosphate through the biodegradation of the herbicide glyphosate (Guddal et al, 1989;Acosta-Cortés et al, 2019).…”