METAGENOMICS COMBINED WITH HIGH-THROUGHPUT SEQUENCING REVEALS THE METHANOGENIC POTENTIAL OF FRESH CORN STRAW UNDER THERMOPHILIC AND HIGH OLR

Highlights

● Methane production from fresh straw was 7.50% higher than dry straw.

● The structure of fresh straw was more conducive to be degraded.

● Organic components of fresh straw was richer and higher than dry straw.

● Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1 , Sporosarcina and Methanosarcinia dominated AD.

● Metagenomics revealed Metanosarcinia adapted to high VFA stress via multiple pathways.

Abstract

Dry corn straw (DCS) is usually used in anaerobic digestion (AD), but fresh corn straw (FCS) has been given less consideration. In this study, the thermophilic AD of single-substrate (FCS and DCS) and co-digestion (straw with cattle manure) were investigated. The results show that when FCS was used as the single-substrate for AD, the methane production was 144 mL·g⁻¹·VS⁻¹, which was 7.5% and 19.6% higher than that of single DCS and FCS with cattle manure, respectively. In addition, the structure of FCS was loose and coarse, which was easier to be degraded than DCS. At the hydrolysis and acidification stages, Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1, Clostridium_sensu_stricto_7 and Sporosarcina promoted the decomposition of organic matter, leading to volatile fatty acids (VFAs) accumulation. Methanosarcina (54.4%) activated multifunctional methanogenic pathways to avoid the VFAs inhibition, which was important at the CH₄ production stage. The main pathway was hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis, with genes encoding formylmethanofuran dehydrogenase (K00200-K00203) and tetrahydromethanopterin S-methyltransferase (K00577-K00584). Methanosarcina also activated acetotrophic and methylotrophic methanogenesis pathways, with genes encoding acetyl phosphate (K13788) and methyl-coenzyme M reductase (K04480, K14080 and K14081), respectively. In the co-digestion, the methanogenic potential of FCS was also confirmed. This provides a scientific basis for regulating AD of crop straw.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

fresh corn straw / high solid anaerobic digestion / metagenomics / microbial communities / thermophilic

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Supplementary materials

The online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2022471 contains supplementary materials (Figs. S1–S2).

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Shaanxi Youth Thousand Talents Project (A279021901), the Scientific and Technological Activities for Overseas Researchers in Shaanxi Province (20200002), the Chinese Universities Scientific Fund (2452021112), the Key Research and Development Project of Shaanxi Province (2020NY-114), the Double first-class construction project funded by Northwest A&F University, Northwest A&F University Young Talent Project (Z111021902), and the USA Energy Foundation (G-2206-33957).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Jinzhi Huang, Xiaoting Yan, Zhen Liu, Mengyi Wang, Yangyang Hu, Zhenyu Li, Minsong Lin, and Yiqing Yao declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2022. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)