Prokaryotic viruses impact functional microorganisms in nutrient removal and carbon cycle in wastewater treatment plants

Yiqiang Chen, Yulin Wang, David Paez-Espino, Martin F. Polz and Tong Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Yiqiang Chen: The University of Hong Kong
Yulin Wang: The University of Hong Kong
David Paez-Espino: Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Martin F. Polz: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tong Zhang: The University of Hong Kong

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract As one of the largest biotechnological applications, activated sludge (AS) systems in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) harbor enormous viruses, with 10-1,000-fold higher concentrations than in natural environments. However, the compositional variation and host-connections of AS viruses remain poorly explored. Here, we report a catalogue of ~50,000 prokaryotic viruses from six WWTPs, increasing the number of described viral species of AS by 23-fold, and showing the very high viral diversity which is largely unknown (98.4-99.6% of total viral contigs). Most viral genera are represented in more than one AS system with 53 identified across all. Viral infection widely spans 8 archaeal and 58 bacterial phyla, linking viruses with aerobic/anaerobic heterotrophs, and other functional microorganisms controlling nitrogen/phosphorous removal. Notably, Mycobacterium, notorious for causing AS foaming, is associated with 402 viral genera. Our findings expand the current AS virus catalogue and provide reference for the phage treatment to control undesired microorganisms in WWTPs.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25678-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-25678-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25678-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().