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Appl Environ Microbiol, April 1998, p. 1504-1509, Vol. 64, No. 4
0099-2240/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Recovery of Humic-Reducing Bacteria from a Diversity of Environments

John D. Coates,1,* Debra J. Ellis,2,dagger Elizabeth L. Blunt-Harris,2 Catherine V. Gaw,2 Eric E. Roden,3 and Derek R. Lovley2

Department of Microbiology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois 629011; Department of Microbiology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 010032; and Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-02063

Received 23 September 1997/Accepted 28 January 1998

To evaluate which microorganisms might be responsible for microbial reduction of humic substances in sedimentary environments, humic-reducing bacteria were isolated from a variety of sediment types. These included lake sediments, pristine and contaminated wetland sediments, and marine sediments. In each of the sediment types, all of the humic reducers recovered with acetate as the electron donor and the humic substance analog, 2,6-anthraquinone disulfonate (AQDS), as the electron acceptor were members of the family Geobacteraceae. This was true whether the AQDS-reducing bacteria were enriched prior to isolation on solid media or were recovered from the highest positive dilutions of sediments in liquid media. All of the isolates tested not only conserved energy to support growth from acetate oxidation coupled to AQDS reduction but also could oxidize acetate with highly purified soil humic acids as the sole electron acceptor. All of the isolates tested were also able to grow with Fe(III) serving as the sole electron acceptor. This is consistent with previous studies that have suggested that the capacity for Fe(III) reduction is a common feature of all members of the Geobacteraceae. These studies demonstrate that the potential for microbial humic substance reduction can be found in a wide variety of sediment types and suggest that Geobacteraceae species might be important humic-reducing organisms in sediments.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901. Phone: (618) 453-6132. Fax: (618) 453-8036. E-mail: jcoates{at}micro.siu.edu.

dagger Present address: American Type Culture Collection, Rockville, MD 20852.




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Copyright © 1998 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.