Biodiversity of Microorganisms Colonizing the Surface of Polystyrene Samples Exposed to Different Aqueous Environments

Tatyana Tourova, Diyana Sokolova, Tamara Nazina, Denis Grouzdev, Eugeni Kurshev and Anatoly Laptev
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Tatyana Tourova: Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, Research Center of Biotechnology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119071 Moscow, Russia
Diyana Sokolova: Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, Research Center of Biotechnology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119071 Moscow, Russia
Tamara Nazina: Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, Research Center of Biotechnology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119071 Moscow, Russia
Denis Grouzdev: Institute of Bioengineering, Research Center of Biotechnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 119071 Moscow, Russia
Eugeni Kurshev: Federal State Unitary Enterprise “All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Aviation Materials”, State Research Center of the Russian Federation, 105005 Moscow, Russia
Anatoly Laptev: Federal State Unitary Enterprise “All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Aviation Materials”, State Research Center of the Russian Federation, 105005 Moscow, Russia

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-23

Abstract: The contamination of marine and freshwater ecosystems with the items from thermoplastics, including polystyrene (PS), necessitates the search for efficient microbial degraders of these polymers. In the present study, the composition of prokaryotes in biofilms formed on PS samples incubated in seawater and the industrial water of a petrochemical plant were investigated. Using a high-throughput sequencing of the V3–V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene, the predominance of Alphaproteobacteria ( Blastomonas ), Bacteroidetes ( Chryseolinea ), and Gammaproteobacteria ( Arenimonas and Pseudomonas ) in the biofilms on PS samples exposed to industrial water was revealed. Alphaproteobacteria ( Erythrobacter ) predominated on seawater-incubated PS samples. The local degradation of the PS samples was confirmed by scanning microscopy. The PS-colonizing microbial communities in industrial water differed significantly from the PS communities in seawater. Both communities have a high potential ability to carry out the carbohydrates and amino acids metabolism, but the potential for xenobiotic degradation, including styrene degradation, was relatively higher in the biofilms in industrial water. Bacteria of the genera Erythrobacter , Maribacter , and Mycobacterium were potential styrene-degraders in seawater, and Pseudomonas and Arenimonas in industrial water. Our results suggest that marine and industrial waters contain microbial populations potentially capable of degrading PS, and these populations may be used for the isolation of efficient PS degraders.

Keywords: polystyrene; microbial community; high-throughput sequencing; the 16S rRNA gene; biodegradation; the sty -operon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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