Metabolic interactions among microbial species during groundwater dehalogenation: an effective way to improve in-situ anaerobic dechlorination of chlorinated ethenes

Abstract:

Organohalide-respiring bacteria (OHRB) play a key role in the in-situ bioremediation of chlorinated ethenes-contaminated groundwater. Improving the abundance and activity of OHRB is of great significance for the complete removal of chlorinated ethenes. Given that OHRB tend to coexist with multifarious microorganisms, metabolic interaction among microbial species has been considered to be a common phenomenon. The complete innocuity of organic pollutants requires the cooperative metabolism of microbial flora. Therefore, from the perspective of interspecific metabolic interaction of microorganisms, this paper presented a brief review of the current dechlorinating microbial resources as well as the mechanism of the dechlorination, particcularly the interspecific metabolic interaction of obligate OHRB, non-obligate OHRB and non-OHRB, and the mechanisms. Moreover, we proposed to construct the synthetic microbial community based on interspecific interaction to improve the anaerobic biodegradation efficiency of chlorinated ethenes, hoping to guide the rapid and complete innocuity of chlorinated ethenes in the environment.