Characterization of the Active Bacterial Community Involved in Natural Attenuation Processes in Arsenic-Rich Creek Sediments

Odile Bruneel (1) , Aurelie Volant (1) , Sébastien Gallien (2) , Bertrand Chaumande (3) , Corinne Casiot (1) , Christine Carapito (2) , Amélie Bardil (1) , Guillaume Morin (4) , Gordon D Brown (5, 6) , Christian Personné (1) , Denis Le Paslier (7) , Christine Schaeffer (2) , Alain van Dorsselaer (2) , Philippe Bertin (8) , Françoise Elbaz-Poulichet (1) , Florence Arsène-Ploetze (8)

1 HSM - Hydrosciences Montpellier
2 IPHC - Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien
3 DSA-IPHC - Département Sciences Analytiques et Interactions Ioniques et Biomoléculaires
4 IMPMC - Institut de minéralogie et de physique des milieux condensés
5 Stanford University
6 SSRL SLAC - Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource
7 GENOSCOPE - Genoscope - Centre national de séquençage [Evry]
8 GMGM - Génétique moléculaire, génomique, microbiologie

Acid mine drainage of the Carnoulès mine (France) is characterized by acid waters containing high concentrations of arsenic and iron. In the first 30 m along the Reigous, a small creek draining the site, more than 38% of the dissolved arsenic was removed by co-precipitation with Fe(III), in agreement with previous studies, which suggest a role of microbial activities in the co-precipitation of As(III) and As(V) with Fe(III) and sulfate. To investigate how this particular ecosystem functions, the bacterial community was characterized in water and sediments by 16S rRNA encoding gene library analysis. Based on the results obtained using a metaproteomic approach on sediments combined with high-sensitivity HPLC-chip spectrometry, several GroEL orthologs expressed by the community were characterized, and the active members of the prokaryotic community inhabiting the creek sediments were identified. Many of these bacteria are β-proteobacteria such as Gallionella and Thiomonas, but γ-proteobacteria such as Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans and α-proteobacteria such as Acidiphilium, Actinobacteria, and Firmicutes were also detected.

Domaines: Interfaces continentales, environnement; Sciences de l'environnement; Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]; Biodiversité et Ecologie; Microbiologie et Parasitologie; Ecologie, Environnement; Planète et Univers [physics]

Odile Bruneel, Aurelie Volant, Sébastien Gallien, Bertrand Chaumande, Corinne Casiot, et al.. Characterization of the Active Bacterial Community Involved in Natural Attenuation Processes in Arsenic-Rich Creek Sediments. Microbial ecology, 2011, 61 (4), pp.793-810. ⟨10.1007/s00248-011-9808-9⟩. ⟨hal-02341109⟩