Skip to main content
Log in

Engineered bacterial biofloc formation enhancing phenol removal and cell tolerance

  • Applied genetics and molecular biotechnology
  • Published:
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A microbial floc consisting of a community of microbes embedded in extracellular polymeric substances matrix can provide microbial resistances to toxic chemicals and harsh environments. Phenol is a toxic environmental pollutant and a typical lignin-derived phenolic inhibitor. In this study, we genetically engineered Escherichia coli cells by expressions of diguanylate cyclases (DGCs) to promote proteinaceous and aliphatic biofloc formation. Compared with the planktonic E. coli cells, the biofloc-forming cells improved phenol removal rate by up to 2.2-folds, due to their substantially improved tolerance (up to 149%) to phenol and slightly enhanced cellular activity (20%) of phenol hydroxylase (PheH). The engineered bioflocs also improved E. coli tolerance to other toxic compounds such as furfural, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural, and guaiacol. Additionally, the strategy of the engineered biofloc formation was applicable to Pseudomonas putida and enhanced its tolerance to phenol. This study highlights a strategy to form engineered bioflocs for improved cell tolerance and removal of toxic compounds, enabling their universality of use in bioproduction and bioremediation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Download references

Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Ningyi Zhou (Shanghai Jiaotong University, China) for his helpful suggestions and Prof. Luying Xun (Shandong University, China) and Prof. Rubing Liang (Shanghai Jiaotong University, China) for E. coli BL21(DE3)-groELS and P. putida KT2440, respectively.

Funding

This work was sponsored by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFA0901200), Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (18JC1413600), and Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (18ZR1420500). This work was also funded in part by Open Project Program of CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology (LMB), LMM and LAMB, SCSIO, CAS (Grant No. 2018011010).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yi Xiao.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(PDF 389 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Jia, X., Zhang, S., Li, J. et al. Engineered bacterial biofloc formation enhancing phenol removal and cell tolerance. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 104, 1187–1199 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-019-10289-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-019-10289-0

Keywords

Navigation