Abstract
Sewer systems are complex physical, chemical and microbial ecosystems where fats, oils and grease (FOG) present a major problem for sewer management. Their accumulation can lead to blockages (‘Fatbergs’), sewer overflows and disruption of downstream wastewater treatment. Further advancements of biological FOG treatments need to be tailored to degrade the FOG, and operate successfully within the sewer environment. In this study we developed a pipeline for isolation of lipolytic strains directly from two FOG blockage sites in the UK, and isolated a range of highly lipolytic bacteria. We selected the five most lipolytic strains using Rhodamine B agar plates and pNP-Fatty acid substrates, with two Serratia spp., two Klebsiella spp. and an environmental Acinetobacter strain that all have the capacity to grow on FOG-based carbon sources. Their genome sequences identified the genetic capacity for fatty acid harvesting (lipases), catabolism and utilization (Fad genes). Furthermore, we performed a preliminary molecular characterization of the microbial community at these sites, showing a diverse community of environmental bacteria at each site, but which did include evidence of sequences related to our isolates. This study provides proof of concept to isolation strategies targeting Fatberg sites to yield candidate strains with bioremediation potential for FOG in the wastewater network. Our work sets the foundation for development of novel bioadditions tailored to the environment with non-pathogenic Acinetobacter identified as a candidate for this purpose.
Highlights
Sewer systems are an essential component of society, conveying large amounts of domestic and industrial wastes to treatment facilities for safe disposal in dry weather, and safe and effective management of large volumes of rainwater in wet weather
We began with one aim being to isolate a range of FOG degrading lipolytic strains from fatbergs within the wastewater environment using lipase activity as a screen
As a first step to ensure that our lipase screening methods would target the correct lipolytic profile in comparison to fatberg environments, we determined the lipid profile of solid fatberg samples taken from two separate exemplar Fatberg sites in London, UK, using gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (GC-FID) by comparison with known fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) standards on five samples from each fatberg
Summary
Sewer systems are an essential component of society, conveying large amounts of domestic and industrial wastes to treatment facilities for safe disposal in dry weather, and safe and effective management of large volumes of rainwater in wet weather They are complex physical, chemical and microbiological ecosystems. The UK has seen several high-profile blockages caused by FOG deposits in sewers in recent years, phenomena that have been termed ‘fatbergs’ [1,2,3,4] Such is the public prominence of these entities, the term fatberg has entered the English lexicon with inclusion in the Oxford Dictionary in 2015 [5]. Recent evidence suggests that this is an increasing problem worldwide – potentially due to rapid population growth and changes in behaviour [12, 14]
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