Insights into the mechanism of Mn(II)-based autotrophic denitrification: Performance, genomic, and metabonomics

The technologies for groundwater nitrate pollution treatment have drawn increasing global attention. As for autotrophic denitrification (AD), most researches aimed to the mixed microbial culture bioreactors, the mechanism of AD by purely cultured bacteria has not been fully investigated yet. Here, denitrification ability, bacterial activity, and dissolved organic matter evolution of Cupriavidus sp. HY129 in both AD and heterotrophic denitrification (HD) were studied. Genomic analysis and microbial metabolomic analysis were applied to explore the mechanism of AD and the difference and intrinsic factors in AD and HD. The results revealed that HD resulted in higher denitrification efficiency and biomass compared to AD and the bacteria preferred to synthesize humic-like proteins to maintain the progress of AD. Bacteria carry out Mn oxidation outside the bacteria cell and transfer electrons into the cell for AD. Cupriavidus sp. HY129 genome has critical metabolic pathways in both autotrophic and heterotrophic conditions, as well as the MCO gene for mediating the Mn oxidation. Energy metabolism pathways were the most significantly differences between AD and HD. Moreover, sphingolipid metabolism and mineral absorption metabolism were the most essential pathways in the autotrophic process to maintain the normal physiological activities and Mn transfer. The results explored the differences between AD and HD pathways in the same bacteria for the first time and provided new insight into understanding the metabolic characteristics of different denitrification, which provide useful information to the global nitrogen cycle and nitrate pollution treatment.