Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 8, 2026
13:16
A Whole Cell Bioreporter Approach to Assess Transport and Bioavailability of Organic Contaminants in Water Unsaturated Systems
Published on: December 24, 2014
10.4K
Risk Assessment of Industrial Microbes Using a Terrestrial Mesocosm Platform
Kathleen L Arnolds1, Riley C Higgins1, Jennifer Crandall1
1Biosciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 15013 Denver West Pkwy, Golden, CO, 80401, USA.
Microbial Ecology
|December 10, 2023
Summary
Industrial microbes like Saccharomyces cerevisiae can impact ecosystems even if they don't persist. This study highlights the need for better risk assessment and containment strategies for microbes used in biotechnology.
Area of Science:
- Environmental microbiology
- Ecological risk assessment
- Industrial biotechnology
Background:
- Industrial microbes are crucial for the bioeconomy but pose environmental risks.
- Understanding the ecological impact and persistence of released microbes is limited.
- Current risk assessment for industrial microbes lacks comprehensive environmental interaction data.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the ecological risk of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in soil-mesocosms.
- To develop and apply methods for tracking industrial microbes and their ecosystem impact.
- To evaluate the short-term and sustained effects of microbial perturbation on soil environments.
Main Methods:
- Utilized soil-sorghum mesocosms for ecological risk assessment.
- Employed digital droplet PCR, microscopy, and phylogenomic analyses for detection and tracking.
- Monitored soil characteristics, microbiome diversity, and population dynamics over 30 days.
Main Results:
- Developed a high-sensitivity platform for tracking S. cerevisiae in complex soil microbiomes.
- Demonstrated that S. cerevisiae has a relatively short lifespan in soil.
- Observed sustained impacts on soil composition and microbial populations following a single perturbation event.
Conclusions:
- A single release of industrial microbes can have lasting ecosystem effects.
- There is a critical need for enhanced risk assessment protocols for industrial biotechnology.
- Development of effective mitigation and biocontainment strategies is essential for responsible microbial deployment.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
01:30Environmental Applications of Microorganisms
Microorganisms play a pivotal role in maintaining ecosystem balance by recycling essential elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, as well as supporting processes like bioremediation, wastewater treatment, and biofuel production.Microbes in Elemental CyclesIn the carbon cycle, microorganisms decompose organic matter, releasing carbon dioxide via aerobic respiration. This carbon dioxide is subsequently used by photosynthetic organisms to synthesize organic compounds, closing the...
01:30Methods to Assess Microbial Populations
Assessing microbial populations is crucial for understanding microbial roles in health, ecology, and industry. Various complementary techniques—both culture-based and molecular—enable detailed analysis of microbial abundance, diversity, and function.Viable Plate CountThe viable plate count is a traditional culture-based method used to estimate the number of living microbes in a sample. After serial dilution, the sample is spread onto nutrient agar plates. Each viable cell forms a visible...
01:19Methods to Assess Microbial Communities
Microbial communities, comprising bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotic microorganisms, inhabit diverse ecosystems and play crucial roles in environmental and biological processes. Their diversity is defined by three main parameters: species richness (the number of distinct species), species abundance (the relative quantity of each species), and species evenness (how uniformly individual species are distributed in various locations). These factors together shape the structure and ecological balance...
01:28Microbial Bioremediation of Pesticides
Pesticides often feature structurally complex chemical architectures, incorporating halogen groups and multiple aromatic rings. These characteristics confer high chemical stability, rendering many pesticides resistant to natural degradation processes. This resistance poses significant environmental concerns, as persistent pesticide residues can accumulate in ecosystems and affect non-target organisms.Despite the inherent stability of many pesticides, certain microorganisms possess the metabolic...
01:30Microbial Wastewater Treatment
Microbial communities in aquatic ecosystems play a key role in the natural breakdown of contaminants introduced through domestic and industrial effluents. Acting as biological catalysts, these microbes change and mineralize a wide range of organic and inorganic pollutants under different redox conditions.In oxygen-rich surface waters, aerobic heterotrophs lead organic matter breakdown, using oxygen as the terminal electron acceptor to efficiently oxidize substrates to carbon dioxide and water.
01:14Scale-Up Processes
The scale-up of microbial fermentation processes is essential in industrial biotechnology, allowing the transition from laboratory-scale experiments to commercial-scale production while aiming to maintain product yield and quality. This process requires meticulous adjustment of equipment design, process parameters, and contamination control strategies to accommodate increasing culture volumes.At the laboratory scale, cultures are typically maintained in 1 to 10-liter glass or autoclavable...