TY - JOUR

T1 - Construction of Simplified Microbial Consortia to Degrade Recalcitrant Materials Based on Enrichment and Dilution-to-Extinction Cultures

AU - Kang, Dingrong

AU - Jacquiod, Samuel

AU - Herschend, Jakob

AU - Wei, Shaodong

AU - Nesme, Joseph

AU - Sørensen, Søren J.

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - The capacity of microbes to degrade recalcitrant materials has been extensively explored for environmental remediation and industrial production. Significant achievements have been made with single strains, but focus is now going toward the use of microbial consortia owning to their functional stability and efficiency. However, assembly of simplified microbial consortia (SMC) from complex environmental communities is still far from trivial due to large diversity and the effect of biotic interactions. Here we propose a strategy, based on enrichment and dilution-to-extinction cultures, to construct SMC with reduced diversity for degradation of keratinous materials. Serial dilutions were performed on a keratinolytic microbial consortium pre-enriched from a soil sample, monitoring the dilution effect on community growth and enzymatic activities. An appropriate dilution regime (10–9) was selected to construct a SMC library from the enriched microbial consortium. Further sequencing analysis and keratinolytic activity assays demonstrated that obtained SMC displayed actual reduced microbial diversity, together with various taxonomic composition, and biodegradation capabilities. More importantly, several SMC possessed equivalent levels of keratinolytic efficiency compared to the initial consortium, showing that simplification can be achieved without loss of function and efficiency. This methodology is also applicable to other types of recalcitrant material degradation involving microbial consortia, thus considerably broadening its application scope.

AB - The capacity of microbes to degrade recalcitrant materials has been extensively explored for environmental remediation and industrial production. Significant achievements have been made with single strains, but focus is now going toward the use of microbial consortia owning to their functional stability and efficiency. However, assembly of simplified microbial consortia (SMC) from complex environmental communities is still far from trivial due to large diversity and the effect of biotic interactions. Here we propose a strategy, based on enrichment and dilution-to-extinction cultures, to construct SMC with reduced diversity for degradation of keratinous materials. Serial dilutions were performed on a keratinolytic microbial consortium pre-enriched from a soil sample, monitoring the dilution effect on community growth and enzymatic activities. An appropriate dilution regime (10–9) was selected to construct a SMC library from the enriched microbial consortium. Further sequencing analysis and keratinolytic activity assays demonstrated that obtained SMC displayed actual reduced microbial diversity, together with various taxonomic composition, and biodegradation capabilities. More importantly, several SMC possessed equivalent levels of keratinolytic efficiency compared to the initial consortium, showing that simplification can be achieved without loss of function and efficiency. This methodology is also applicable to other types of recalcitrant material degradation involving microbial consortia, thus considerably broadening its application scope.

KW - biodegradation

KW - dilution-to-extinction

KW - enrichment cultivation

KW - recalcitrant materials

KW - simplified microbial consortia

U2 - 10.3389/fmicb.2019.03010

DO - 10.3389/fmicb.2019.03010

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 31998278

AN - SCOPUS:85078423428

VL - 10

JO - Frontiers in Microbiology

JF - Frontiers in Microbiology

SN - 1664-302X

M1 - 3010

ER -