Discovery of naturally produced bioemulsifiers to remediate the next oil spill

发现天然产生的生物乳化剂来修复下一次漏油事件

• 批准号: 2136146
• 负责人: Konstantinos Konstantinidis
• 金额: $ 41.99万
• 依托单位: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2136146&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Discovery; naturally; produced; bioemulsifiers; remediate; Discovery; naturally; produced; bioemulsifiers; remediate

Crude oil accidents, either on land or in the ocean, have devastating environmental consequences, especially in pollution-sensitive habitats. Large amounts of oil from the Exxon-Valdez accident in 1989 in Alaska and the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico washed up and were buried in shoreline sediments where they have persisted for decades. Microorganisms are the first to respond to environmental contamination and process most of the oil that enters the environment. However, oil biodegradation may be extremely slow and, as a result, oil ends up sinking and then is buried in sediments. Buried and harmful polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons associated with oils can then be released to the surface during storm events causing further environmental damage. The common emergency response strategy to oil spills is to apply chemical dispersants to facilitate oil dispersion and dissolution. However, such chemicals can have high toxicity to microbes that degrade oil in the environment. Thus, new products are needed. The overarching objective of this project is to develop new, environmentally friendly dispersants, surfactants, and emulsifiers to remediate future oil spills. To achieve this objective, the research team will study the natural emulsifiers produced by coastal bacteria that were discovered in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and then test effective crude-oil degraders. The successful completion of this project will benefit society through the identification of environmentally friendly and effective emulsifiers for crude-oil degradation. Additional benefits to society will be achieved through student education and training including the mentoring of two graduate students at Georgia Tech.Oil spills require millions of liters of chemical dispersants to help remediate damage. Environmentally benign and effective emulsifiers and surfactants are needed to address oil spills where the use of previous chemical dispersants have been banned. The research team has recently reported the metagenome-guided isolation of a novel bacterium, provisionally named Candidatus Macondimonas diazotrophica, that represents a phylogenetically narrow group of previously uncharacterized, crude-oil degraders. These microorganisms are highly abundant in oiled sediments of coastal marine ecosystems across the world, often comprising up to ~30% of the total microbial community, while being low abundance in adjacent, non-contaminated samples. This high abundance in a natural ecosystem suggests unusual physiological capabilities in these microorganisms that confer advantage over other microbes when exposed to oil contamination. The bioinformatic annotation of the Ca. M. diazotrophica genome has revealed several novel biosynthetic clusters that are predicted to produce lipid-based bioemulsifiers and surfactants. The overall goal of this project is to identify and characterize these new bioemulsifiers and test their ability to speed up crude oil biodegradation. The emerging bioremediation technologies will fill a gap in remediation techniques for oil spill-related disasters. These bioemulsifiers are also likely to find applications in enhanced oil recovery from natural habitats as well as in the detergent industry as a replacement for chlorinated solvents. Hence, the broader impacts of the resulting bioemulsifiers and technologies will affect multiple science and engineering disciplines and find several practical biotechnological applications. Students will be trained at the interface of cutting-edge metagenomics and bioinformatics with bioprospecting, chemistry, and engineering. The experience gained from the educational activities will be shared in a workshop with faculty from undergraduate and community colleges during the major undergraduate education conference of the American Society for Microbiology and at the Gulf of Mexico Research Institute annual conference.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

原油事故，无论是在陆地还是海洋中，都有毁灭性的环境后果，尤其是在污染敏感的栖息地中。 1989年在阿拉斯加发生的埃克森 - 瓦尔德斯事故发生的大量油和2010年在墨西哥湾的Deepwater Horizo​​n事故被洗净，被埋葬在海岸线沉积物中，在那里它们持续了数十年。微生物是第一个应对环境污染和处理大多数进入环境的石油的人。但是，油生物降解可能非常慢，因此，油最终会下沉，然后将其埋在沉积物中。在暴风雨事件中，可以将与油相关的埋入和有害的多环芳族碳酸氢碳纤维释放到表面，从而导致进一步的环境损害。漏油事件的常见紧急响应策略是应用化学分散剂以促进油分散和溶解。但是，这种化学物质可能对在环境中降解油的微生物具有较高的毒性。因此，需要新产品。该项目的总体目的是开发新的，环保的分散剂，表面活性剂和乳化剂，以补充未来的漏油事件。为了实现这一目标，研究小组将研究沿海细菌产生的天然乳化剂，这些乳化剂是在深水地平线漏油后发现的，然后测试有效的原油降解器。该项目的成功完成将通过识别环保和有效的乳化剂来使社会受益，以使原油退化。通过学生的教育和培训，包括在佐治亚理工学院的两名研究生的指导中，将为社会带来其他好处。石油泄漏需要数百万升的化学分散剂来帮助补救损害。需要环境良性和有效的乳化剂和表面活性剂来解决使用先前使用化学分散剂的漏油事件。该研究小组最近报道了一种新型细菌的元基因组引导的分离，该细菌被临时称为念珠菌深地虫根酶，该细菌代表了一组狭窄的先前未表征，粗油的降解器的系统发育狭窄的组。这些微生物在世界各地的沿海海洋生态系统的上油沉积物中高度丰富，通常占微生物群落的约30％，而在相邻的，未污染的样品中的丰度较低。天然生态系统中这种高丰度表明这些微生物中异常的生理能力在暴露于油污染时比其他微生物赋予优势。 CA的生物信息学注释。重18zotrophica基因组揭示了几个新型的生物合成簇，这些簇预测会产生基于脂质的生物乳剂和表面活性剂。该项目的总体目标是识别和表征这些新的生物乳化剂，并测试它们加快原油生物降解的能力。新兴的生物修复技术将填补与漏油有关的灾难的修复技术的空白。这些生物乳化剂还可能在自然栖息地以及清洁剂行业的石油回收中找到应用，以替代氯化溶剂。因此，由此产生的生物乳化剂和技术的更广泛影响将影响多个科学和工程学科，并找到几种实用的生物技术应用。学生将接受培训，并通过生物镜，化学和工程学的尖端宏基因组学和生物信息学的界面进行培训。从教育活动中获得的经验将在一个研讨会上与本科和社区学院的教师分享在美国微生物学会的主要本科教育会议上，并在墨西哥研究所的年度会议上。该奖项奖反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过评估基金会的智力效果和广泛的评估，并被视为值得通过评估的范围。