Microbiome analysis and -omics studies of microbial denitrification processes in wastewater treatment: recent advances

Lili Miao, Zhipei Liu

Nitrogen pollution is an increasingly severe worldwide problem because of drainage of nitrogen-containing wastewater and intensive application of nitrogen-containing fertilizers. Denitrification, a key process in nitrogen cycles, is commonly employed for nitrogen removal in engineered wastewater treatment systems. Biological denitrification is performed by denitrifying microbes (bacteria) that use nitrate as terminal electron acceptor. Better understanding the functions of diverse microbial populations in denitrification-based wastewater treatment systems, and the interactions of these populations with operating environments, is essential for improving both treatment performance and system stability. Recent advances in "meta-omics" (e. g., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics), other molecular biology tools, and microbiome analysis have greatly enhanced such understanding. This minireview summarizes recent findings regarding microbial community structure and composition, key functional microbes and their physiology, functional genes involved in nitrogen cycle, and responses of microbes and their genes to changes of environmental factors or operating parameters, in denitrification processes in wastewater treatment systems. Of particular interest are heterotrophic denitrification systems (which require alternative organic carbon sources) and the autotrophic denitrification systems (which do not require an external carbon source). Integrated microbiome and -omics approaches have great future potential for determination of optimal environmental and biotechnological parameters, novel process development, and improvement of nitrogen removal efficiency and system stability.