Cofactor F430 as a biomarker for methanogenic activity: application to an anaerobic bioreactor system

Over the last decades, anaerobic bioreactor technology proved to be a competitive technology for purifying wastewater while producing biogas. Methanogens perform the crucial final step in methane production, and monitoring their activity is of paramount importance for system understanding and management. Cofactor F₄₃₀ is an essential prosthetic group of the methyl-coenzyme M reductase (MCR) enzyme catalysing this final step. This research investigates whether the quantification of cofactor F₄₃₀ in bioreactor systems is a viable intermediate-complexity monitoring tool in comparison to the conventional biogas and volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentration follow-up and molecular genetic techniques targeting the mcrA gene encoding the MCR protein or its transcripts. Cofactor F₄₃₀ was quantified in a lab-scale anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) using liquid chromatography. The system was subjected to two organic loading rate shocks, and the F₄₃₀ content of the sludge was followed up alongside mcrA gene copy and transcript numbers and classical performance monitoring tools. The research showed for the first time the combined mcrA gene transcript and F₄₃₀ content dynamics in an anaerobic bioreactor system and reveals their significant positive correlation with in situ methane production rate. The main difference between the two monitoring methods relates to the cofactor's slower degradation kinetics. The work introduces the use of cofactor F₄₃₀ as a biomarker for methanogenic activity and, hence, as a monitoring tool that can be quantified within half a working day, yielding information directly related to in situ methanogenic activity in methanogenic reactors.