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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, August 1998, p. 2970-2976, Vol. 64, No. 8
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular and
Cellular Biology of Plants, Estación Experimental del
Zaidín, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas, 18008 Granada, Spain,1 and
Department of Microbiology, Swiss Federal Institute for
Environmental Science and Technology (EAWAG), CH-8600 Dübendorf,
Switzerland2
Received 21 January 1998/Accepted 26 May 1998
The nitrate-tolerant organism Klebsiella oxytoca CECT
4460 tolerates nitrate at concentrations up to 1 M and is used to treat wastewater with high nitrate loads in industrial wastewater treatment plants. We studied the influence of the C source (glycerol or sucrose
or both) on the growth rate and the efficiency of nitrate removal under
laboratory conditions. With sucrose as the sole C source the maximum
specific growth rate was 0.3 h
0099-2240/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Influence of Carbon Source on Nitrate Removal by Nitrate-Tolerant
Klebsiella oxytoca CECT 4460 in Batch and Chemostat
Cultures
ová,2
1, whereas with glycerol it
was 0.45 h
1. In batch cultures K. oxytoca
cells grown on sucrose or glycerol were able to immediately use sucrose
as a sole C source, suggesting that sucrose uptake and metabolism were
constitutive. In contrast, glycerol uptake occurred preferentially in
glycerol-grown cells. Independent of the preculture conditions, when
sucrose and glycerol were added simultaneously to batch cultures, the
sucrose was used first, and once the supply of sucrose was exhausted,
the glycerol was consumed. Utilization of nitrate as an N source
occurred without nitrite or ammonium accumulation when glycerol was
used, but nitrite accumulated when sucrose was used. In chemostat
cultures K. oxytoca CECT 4460 efficiently removed nitrate
without accumulation of nitrate or ammonium when sucrose, glycerol, or
mixtures of these two C sources were used. The growth yields and the
efficiencies of C and N utilization were determined at different growth
rates in chemostat cultures. Regardless of the C source, yield carbon (YC) ranged between 1.3 and 1.0 g (dry weight) per g
of sucrose C or glycerol C consumed. Regardless of the specific growth
rate and the C source, yield nitrogen (YN) ranged from 17.2 to 12.5 g (dry weight) per g of nitrate N consumed. In contrast to
batch cultures, in continuous cultures glycerol and sucrose were
utilized simultaneously, although the specific rate of sucrose
consumption was higher than the specific rate of glycerol consumption.
In continuous cultures double-nutrient-limited growth appeared with respect to the C/N ratio of the feed medium and the dilution rate, so
that for a C/N ratio between 10 and 30 and a growth rate of 0.1 h
1 the process led to simultaneous and efficient removal
of the C and N sources used. At a growth rate of 0.2 h
1
the zone of double limitation was between 8 and 11. This suggests that
the regimen of double limitation is influenced by the C/N ratio and the
growth rate. The results of these experiments were validated by pulse
assays.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: EEZ-CSIC,
Apdo. Correos 419, E-18008 Granada, Spain. Phone: 34-958-121011. Fax:
34-958-129600. E-mail: jlramos{at}eez.csic.es.
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