Gutachten zur Umweltbiologie

Bacterial Community Exploration through Ion Torrent Sequencing from Different Treatment Stages of CETP for Tannery

Muthukalingan Krishnan, Thangaiyan Suganya and Jeyaraj Pandiarajan

Bacterial Community Exploration through Ion Torrent Sequencing from Different Treatment Stages of CETP for Tannery

In developing nations, the tannery industry is a major polluter. Only 20% of the chemicals consumed are utilized in the tanning process; the remainder is waste that pollutes the environment. The Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) is a promising approach to treat industrial effluent. In this study, the physico-chemical parameter and the bacterial communities were analysed in different treatment stages of CETP effluent; raw effluent (RE), primary treated (PT), secondary treated (ST) and tertiary treated (TT). The physicochemical results revealed a decrease in the concentration of pollutants at each stage. It was hypothesised that in addition to chemical treatment, the bacterial community plays a key role in the reduction of chemical load and heavy metals. So, theV6 hyper-variable region of 16S rRNA gene was amplified and analysed using ion torrent PGM platform to explore the uncultivable bacterial community which are responsible for pollution reduction. The sequence data were evaluated using the MG-RAST server, which revealed proteobacteria (4.3-34.6%) as predominant in all CETP stages. Actinobacteria was dominant in ST (10.6%) and TT (5.1%) effluent and bacteroidetes dominated in PT (36.7%) and RE (51.9%). The results clearly showedthe taxonomic shifts in each stage of CETP, which aligned with physico-chemical changes. We conclude that the bacterial survivability and species richness in each stage could be used as bioindicators to monitor the level of pollution and appropriate functioning of a CETP.