Changes of microbial composition during wastewater reclamation and distribution systems revealed by high-throughput sequencing analyses

Abstract

This study employed 454-pyrosequencing to investigate microbial and pathogenic communities in two wastewater reclamation and distribution systems. A total of 11972 effective 16S rRNA sequences were acquired from these two reclamation systems, and then designated to relevant taxonomic ranks by using RDP classifier. The Chao index and Shannon diversity index showed that the diversities of microbial communities decreased along wastewater reclamation processes. Proteobacteria was the most dominant phylum in reclaimed water after disinfection, which accounted for 83% and 88% in two systems, respectively. Human opportunistic pathogens, including Clostridium, Escherichia, Shigella, Pseudomonas and Mycobacterium, were selected and enriched by disinfection processes. The total chlorine and nutrients (TOC, NH₃-N and NO₃-N) significantly affected the microbial and pathogenic communities during reclaimed water storage and distribution processes. Our results indicated that the disinfectant-resistant pathogens should be controlled in reclaimed water, since the increases in relative abundances of pathogenic bacteria after disinfection implicate the potential public health associated with reclaimed water.

Keywords

wastewater reclamation systems / microbial community / pathogenic community / 454-pyrosequencing

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 21477024, 51178242, and 21527814), the State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control in China (No. 14K05ESPCT), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2014AA06A506), and Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University of China (No. IRT1152).

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11783-016-0830-5 and is accessible for authorized users.

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