BIOCHEMICAL PATHWAYS IN BIOLOGICAL PHOSPHORUS REMOVAL ASSESSED USING PROTEOMICS

Removal of phosphorus from wastewater by the process called enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) is a widely used alternative to chemical precipitation. To better understand the process, several biochemical and molecular biology based studies have investigated the metabolism and identity of the phosphorus accumulating organisms (PAOs) in various wastewater treatment systems. With the recent sequencing of the metagenome of a lab-scale EBPR sequencing batch reactor enriched for a Candidatus Accumulibacter Phosphatis Type IIA, we attempt to couple the investigations of metabolism with genome-enabled tools to improve our understanding of the process. To this aim, we have developed methods for metaproteomic analysis, which allows identification of nearly all proteins expressed by the community. This paper presents the results of our initial investigation into optimizing the protein extraction protocol as well as a summary of the preliminary metaproteomic analysis.