Abstract
Chemolithoautotrophic sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (SOB) are crucial key players in biotechnological processes to remove hydrogen sulfide from sour gas streams. Several different haloalkaliphilic SOB have been detected and isolated from lab- and full-scale facilities, which all performed differently considering end product yields (sulfur and sulfate) and conversion rates. Understanding and regulating bacterial community dynamics in biodesulfurization processes will enable optimization of the process operation. We developed quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays to quantify haloalkaliphilic sulfur-oxidizing gammaproteobacterial species Alkalilimnicola ehrlichii, Thioalkalivibrio sulfidiphilus, and Thioalkalibacter halophilus that dominate bacterial communities of biodesulfurization lab- and full-scale installations at haloalkaline conditions. The specificity and PCR efficiency of novel primer sets were evaluated using pure cultures of these target species. We further validated the qPCR assays by quantification of target organisms in five globally distributed full-scale biodesulfurization installations. The qPCR assays perform a sensitive and accurate quantification of Alkalilimnicola ehrlichii, Thioalkalivibrio sulfidiphilus and Thioalkalibacter halophilus, thus providing rapid and valuable insights into process performance and SOB growth dynamics in gas biodesulfurization systems.
Highlights
Sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (SOB) are microorganisms that naturally occur in highly saline and alkaline environments such as soda lakes (Sorokin and Kuenen 2005; Sorokin et al 2013)
Optimal reaction parameters for the developed quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays were initial denaturation for 5 min at 95 °C followed by 30 amplification cycles of denaturation for 10 s at 95 °C, annealing for 30 s at 53 °C for Alkalilimnicola ehrlichii, 55 °C for Thioalkalivibrio sulfidiphilus and 66 °C for Thioalkalibacter halophilus
Thioalkalivibrio sulfidiphilus HL-EbGR7 is genetically related to another Tv. sulfidiphilus ALJ17 and to Tv. denitrificans (Sorokin et al 2012; Ahn et al 2017)
Summary
Sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (SOB) are microorganisms that naturally occur in highly saline and alkaline environments such as soda lakes (Sorokin and Kuenen 2005; Sorokin et al 2013). SOB are known to be present in complex and species-rich consortia of microorganisms involved in both anaerobic and aerobic processes (Janssen et al 2009) and can grow chemolithoautotrophically using inorganic sulfur compounds as electron donor and CO2 as carbon source (Ghosh and Dam 2009). These chemolithoautotrophic SOB are enriched in biotechnological processes to remove hydrogen sulfide. Were found to dominate (Roman et al 2016) The addition of these toxic thiols affected SOB community composition, but alterations of the biodesulfurization process conditions can cause a community change. Changes in the bioreactor design or addition of an extra bioreactor can result in SOB community composition shift (De Rink et al 2019)
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