Identification and metabolic mechanism of non-fermentative short-cut denitrifying phosphorus-removing bacteria

To investigate the characteristics and metabolic mechanism of short-cut denitrifying phosphorus-removing bacteria (SDPB) that are capable of enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) using nitrite as an electron acceptor, an aerobic/anoxic sequencing batch reactor was operated under three phases. An SDPB-strain YC was screened after the sludge enrichment and was identified by morphological, physiological, biochemical properties and 16S rDNA gene sequence analysis. Denitrifying phosphorus-removing experiments were conducted to study anaerobic and anoxic metabolic mechanisms by analyzing the changes of chemical oxygen demand (COD), phosphate, nitrite, poly-β-hydroxybutyrate (PHB), and glycogen. The results show that strain YC is a non-fermentative SDPB similar to Paracoccus denitrificans. As a kind of non-fermentative bacteria, the energy of strain YC was mainly generated from phosphorus release (96.2%) under anaerobic conditions with 0.32 mg P per mg synthesized PHB. Under anoxic conditions, strain YC accumulated 0.45 mg P per mg degraded PHB, which produced most of energy for phosphate accumulation (91.3%) and a little for glycogen synthesis (8.7%). This metabolic mechanism of strain YC is different from that of traditional phosphorus-accumulating organisms (PAOs). It is also found that PHB, a kind of intracellular polymer, plays a very important role in denitrifying and accumulating phosphorus by supplying sufficient energy for phosphorous accumulation and carbon sources for denitrification. Therefore, monitoring ΔP/ΔPHB and Δ-NO−2-N/ΔPHB is more necessary than monitoring ΔP/ΔCOD, ΔNO−2-N/ΔCOD, or ΔP/ΔNO−2-N.