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Recombinant protein, AlnA, combined with transgenic alfalfa remediates polychlorinated biphenyl-contaminated soils: efficiency and rhizosphere microbial community response

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Abstract

Objective

To investigate the remediation efficiency of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB)-contaminated soils by the combination of a bioemulsifying protein, AlnA, and alfalfa expressing bphC.

Result

The combination of AlnA and transgenic alfalfa promoted PCB soil remediation through the pot experiments. The removal rates of tri-PCBs (PCB 16/PCB 32 and PCB 31/PCB 28) and tetra-PCB (PCB 49) in transgenic alfalfa/AlnA treatment were 3.6-, 1.1-, and 2-fold higher than in transgenic alfalfa treatment alone. Analysis of gene copy number revealed that the PCB-degrading gene, bphC, of Pseudomonas-like bacterial populations in transgenic alfalfa/AlnA treatment increased 1.5-fold compared with that of unplanted soils. Bacterial community Illumina sequencing showed Pseudomonas, Arthrobacter, and Sphingomonas positively correlated with the removal rates of PCBs.

Conclusions

PCB removal was unrelated to bacterial community diversity but positively correlated with their specific degraders and bphC gene expression.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Natural Science Research Foundation of Jilin Province of China (20140520155JH), the 12th Five-Year Plan Project of the Science and Technology Support of China (2014BAD14B02) the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31500432 and 41471252), and the National Key Technology R&D Program of China (2012BAD04B02).

Supporting information

Supplementary Table 1—Physiological indexes of Alfalfa under PCBs stress.

Supplementary Table 2—Alpha diversity analysis of 16s rDNA gene sequences from different treatments.

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Correspondence to Yan Wang.

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Ren, H., Su, Y., Zhang, J. et al. Recombinant protein, AlnA, combined with transgenic alfalfa remediates polychlorinated biphenyl-contaminated soils: efficiency and rhizosphere microbial community response. Biotechnol Lett 38, 1893–1901 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-016-2169-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-016-2169-1

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