The recent availability of extensive metagenomic sequences from various environmental microbial communities has extended the postgenomic era to the field of environmental microbiology. Although still restricted to a small number of studies, metaproteomic investigations have revealed interesting aspects of functional gene expression within microbial habitats that contain limited microbial diversity. These studies highlight the potential of proteomics for the study of microbial consortia. However, the application of proteomic investigations to complex microbial assemblages such as seawater and soil still presents considerable challenges. Nonetheless, metaproteomics will enhance the understanding of the microbial world and link microbial community composition to function.

Metaproteomics: Studying functional gene expression in microbial ecosystems

Ligninolytic enzymes and its mechanisms for degradation of lignocellulosic waste in environment

ioremediation is a remediation technology using biological systems to cope pollution problems. “Bioremediation is an ecologically sound and state-of-the-art technique that employs contaminants”(Dr. Barware All). “Bioremediation is the process of using bacteria and other biological enhancements under controlled conditions to control pollution caused by different components of gasoline and fuel oxygenates in the contaminated land and groundwater”(David Laughlin and Randy Mueller).

Bioremediation을 활용한 수질정화

With the fast development of industrialization and urbanization, large amounts of organic pollutants are released into the natural environment. The efficient elimination of organic pollutants is thereby crucial for environmental pollution treatment and human health. In the last decades, photocatalytic degradation of persistent organic pollutants has attracted multidisciplinary interest because of its simple operation on a large scale. However, the whole processes for the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants are still unclear. In this perspective, the contribution of reactive species, the contribution of photocatalysts, the analysis of intermediate products, the charge transfer and fast carrier recombination are discussed on biochar-based photocatalysts.

Challenges of organic pollutant photocatalysis by biochar-based catalysts

2017 Annual Report

Pollutants released from the pulp paper industry: Aquatic toxicity and their health hazards.

Rapid industrialization, urbanization, and agricultural practices have led to the generation and release of various toxic organic and inorganic contaminants into the environment. These toxic contaminants can accumulate and persist for long periods of time and deteriorate the surrounding environment. Thus remediation of contaminated sites using microbial process (bioremediation) has proven an ecofriendly, reliable technology, promising technology due to its overall high efficiency and cost-effectiveness. However, bioremediation of contaminated sites has been hampered by the lack of a holistic system-wide understanding of the complex interactions between degrading organisms and genes, the wider metabolic network of the microbial community, and the environmental variability in each specific habitat. Although conventional or culture-dependent methods are currently being applied to characterize the potential pollutants degrading/detoxifying microorganisms, these techniques are often biased and of limited value owing to the inability to cultivate many naturally occurring species. Many molecular culture-independent methods have been widely used to investigate the microbial community structure and their function in a contaminated environment. However, these low-throughput approaches are not able to completely explore the detailed microbial community structure due to the extremely complex communities and overwhelming genetic diversities in contaminated sites. Recently, advanced metagenomics approaches based on high-throughput sequencing, which can be used to directly sequence genomic DNA, have been widely used in studies to explore the structures and functions of microbial communities in the biogeochemical cycles and degradation and detoxification of environmental pollutants. In this chapter we seek to provide key background on metagenomics approaches and summarize how these tools have been employed to understand contaminated environments in an effort to inform the best practices for environmental cleanup. We also discuss the potential of metagenomics to boost the development of improved metagenomics strategies for cleaning up contaminated environments with the help of recent multiple case studies and highlight how this approach has allowed the recent discovery of new biodegradation genes/pathways and microbial adaptation and synergistic.

Application of metagenomics in remediation of contaminated sites and environmental restoration

The paper industry wastewater even after bio-treatment at industrial scale is a major source of aquatic and soil pollution due to various unknown compounds. Hence, the study has focused on the dete...

Comparative analysis of residual organic pollutants from bleached and unbleached paper mill wastewater and their toxicity on Phaseolus aureus and Tubifex tubifex

Laccases are the widely distributed oxidative enzymes belong to the group of phenoloxidases. These are considered as model enzymes and widely distributed in nature. Bacterial laccases have extremophilic nature and several other unique properties that are not features of fungal laccase such as hightemperature stability and pH. The present study focused on the optimization of laccase production from Bacillus sp. AKRC01 under submerged fermentation state using agro-waste as the substrate. The optimized environmental conditions such as incubation period 96 hours, temperature 35°C and pH 8.0 were obtained maximum enzyme production 3.832 U/ml. In addition, optimized the carbon and nitrogen sources such as 2.0% glucose (4.967 U/mL) and 1.0% peptone (6.236 U/mL) resulted in maximum enzyme production with rice bran as an effective agro-waste substrate. Laccase enzyme was partially purified via ammonium sulfate precipitation method and chromatography using the sephadex column and determination of the molecular weight of 61 kDa compared with the protein ladder was done by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The findings of this study demonstrated the ability of Bacillus sp. AKRC01 using low-cost agro-waste for laccase production. Laccases are important enzymes that have several industrial applications such as bioremediation, bio pulping and food industry.

Ajay Kumar Singh

Papers

Pollutants released from the pulp paper industry: Aquatic toxicity and their health hazards.

Application of metagenomics in remediation of contaminated sites and environmental restoration

Comparative analysis of residual organic pollutants from bleached and unbleached paper mill wastewater and their toxicity on Phaseolus aureus and Tubifex tubifex

Optimization of Laccase Production by Bacillus sp. Strain AKRC01 in Presence of Agro-waste as Effective Substrate using Response Surface Methodology

Residual organic pollutants detected from pulp and paper industry wastewater and their toxicity on Triticum aestivum and Tubifex-tubifex worms