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Plasmid Metagenomes in Activated Sludge

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Encyclopedia of Metagenomics
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Definition

Plasmid metagenomes in activated sludge refers to all the genetic material on plasmids in the microorganisms present in the activated sludge.

Introduction

Activated sludge (AS) is a high-efficiency and low-cost biological wastewater treatment process which is being widely used to remove pollutants in wastewater. Plasmids often play important roles in shaping the microbial characteristics of activated sludge, such as the antibiotic resistance, which is just a hotspot that many researchers have already studied on (Yang et al. 2012; Zhang et al. 2011) and contribute to multiple important functions of activated sludge, such as degradation of refractory organic pollutants and transformation of heavy metals. Additionally, in the system of AS, plasmids always have high levels of genetic diversity and composition (Schluter et al. 2008). Therefore, the analysis of plasmids has a significance in characterizing microbial populations in activated sludge and understanding the...

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Correspondence to Tong Zhang .

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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Li, Ad., Zhang, T. (2013). Plasmid Metagenomes in Activated Sludge. In: Nelson, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Metagenomics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6418-1_244-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6418-1_244-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6418-1

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