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Microbial reduction of Cr(VI) in the presence of Ni, Cu and Zn by bacterial consortium enriched from an electroplating contaminated site

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Abstract

The bioremediation of Cr(VI) has been intensively reported in recent years, while little information about Cr(VI)-reducing consortium enriched from in-situ contaminated soil has been revealed, specifically the functional genes involved. In this study, we verified a Cr(VI) reduction process by a consortium enriched from in-situ contaminated soil through enzymatic analysis. The chromate reductase gene ChrR has been successfully amplified and further analyzed, provided solid evidence to prove the Cr(VI) bio-reduction was an enzyme-mediated process. Meanwhile, the analysis of metabolic pathways demonstrates that the consortium could detoxicate and resist Cr(VI) and co-existing metals (Ni2+, Zn2+ and Cu2+) through membrane transport and DNA repair process. The co-existing heavy metals Zn and Cu had a relatively significant negative and positive effects on Cr(VI) reduction respectively, which may play important roles in the Cr(VI) contaminated soil bioremediation.

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Data availability

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the “National Key Technology R&D Program (2018YFC1802203)”, the “Key Technology R&D Program of Zhejiang Province (2020C03011, 2021C03171)”, and the “National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 32061133002)” for their financial support.

Funding

National Key Technology R&D Program: 2018YFC1802203. National Natural Science Foundation of China: 51878596, 21577123.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MOE Key Lab of Environmental Remediation and Ecosystem Health, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Wen-Jing Gong & He-Ping Zhao

  2. Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, China

    Xing-Run Wang

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  1. Wen-Jing Gong
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Contributions

Conceptualization, HPZ; formal analysis, WJG, XW; investigation, WJG; methodology, WJG; project administration, HPZ; resources, XW; writing—review and editing, HPZ.

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Correspondence to He-Ping Zhao.

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10532_2021_9962_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 1050 kb). Supplementary Materials: The following are available online at www.mdpi.com/xxx/s1, Figure S1: The reduction of Cr(VI) with different initial Cr(VI) concentrations; Figure S2: PCR carried out with DNA extracted from consortiums with different concentration of Cr(VI) (0, 30, 50, 100, 150, 200, 300) and specific primers. 1-7: amplification with primer ChR; 8: marker; 9-15: amplification with primer NfsA; 16-22: amplification with primer NfsB; Figure S3: PCR carried out with primer ChrR and DNA extracted from consortium without Cr(VI). M: marker, 14: DNA extracted from consortium without Cr(VI). 5: Control group without DNA; Figure S4: The microbial community composition at genus-level of the original consortium under different concentrations of co-existing metals (A), and microbial function annotation by PICRUSt (B, C, D: Microbial function annotation under Cu, Ni and Zn stress); Figure S5: The effect of LB culture and the consortium on the concentration of Ni, Cu and Zn; Figure S6: The abundances of the ChrR gene of the consortium having different concentrations of Ni, Cu and Zn and 50mg/L Cr(VI); Table S1: The particle composition (%) of tested soil sample; Table S2: The DNA fragment amplified by NfsA; Supplement table: The result of genome-wide annotation.

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Gong, WJ., Wang, XR. & Zhao, HP. Microbial reduction of Cr(VI) in the presence of Ni, Cu and Zn by bacterial consortium enriched from an electroplating contaminated site. Biodegradation 32, 711–722 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-021-09962-x

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