Microbial Adaptation in Response to Environmental Stress in Polluted Groundwater Aquifers
EMSL Project ID
48596
Abstract
Steep gradients in chemical concentration, redox potential, pH, and temperature are common in the environment. They are often "hotspots" of microbial activity and diversity. For example, dense biological growth can occur along the margins of contaminant groundwater plumes where electron donors and acceptors mix. Environmental gradients are not static. They can physically migrate with changes in hydrology, and they can evolve over time and be dominated by different chemicals, redox potentials, pH, or temperatures. These spatial and temporal changes expose microorganisms to new environments, and this can induce stress, possibly leading to microbial adaptation via genome alteration. The primary objectives of this NASA-funded study are to explore microbial response to stress-promoting concentration gradients in a microfluidic gradient chamber, and to determine whether the stress is a major driving force in genome-based microbial adaptation. The adaptation of one species of archaea (i.e., Methanosarcina acetivorans), and one dissimilatory metal reducing (DMR) microorganism (i.e., Geobacter sulfurreducins) will be evaluated. The former is relevant to carbon cycling in the environment, whereas the latter is relevant to metal remediation at Department of Energy sites. Chemical gradients to be evaluated include an antiobiotic, trace oxygen, and possibly reduced sulfur species. The genomes of both the archaea and DMR microorganisms are fully sequenced, and this will allow us to track genomic changes in the presence of the environmental stress.
Project Details
Project type
Exploratory Research
Start Date
2014-11-11
End Date
2015-09-30
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Team Members