To meet societal demands, industrial and military activities have released many chemicals, including toxic contaminants, into the environment. Human exposure to toxic compounds by inhaling contaminated air or consuming tainted food or water can cause acute and chronic illnesses, with substantial burden on the health care system. Contaminated site cleanup and environmental stewardship are costly tasks but continued research and innovation can lower the financial burden to site owners and to the taxpayer. The last two decades have seen substantial technological advances aimed at remediating polluted soil, sediment and groundwater, and restoring crucial ecosystem functions and services. A promising remedy is bioremediation, a technology that takes advantage of naturally occurring microorganisms that detoxify pollutants such as chlorinated solvents in groundwater. In situ implementation of this approach can substantially speed up cleanup times, lower the environmental impact of remedial actions, and substantially reduce cleanup costs. Biostimulation (the addition of nutrients) and bioaugmentation (the addition of microbes capable of contaminant detoxification) have been successfully applied at numerous chlorinated solvent-impacted sites, but the current approaches are brute-force, and more refined treatment can result in a similar reduction of contaminant concentrations at substantially lower capital investment and lesser environmental impact. For example, specialized organohalide-respiring bacteria (e.g., Dehalococcoides, Dehalogenimonas) have been discovered that efficiently utilize chlorinated ethenes as electron acceptors thereby converting toxic carcinogens to benign products. The design and application of molecular biological tools for monitoring the responses of such keystone bacteria to treatment, and knowledge about their specific requirements for activity (e.g., hydrogen and corrinoid availability), has enabled successful bioremediation at many sites impacted with toxic chlorinated ethenes. Progress in understanding of the microbiology contributing to chlorinated compound detoxification, combined with technological advances enabling systems biology approaches, serves as an example how investments in fundamental research and translational efforts can advance bioremediation from an empirical practice to an approach with predictable outcomes (i.e., precision bioremediation).

Systems biology approaches: A pathway to precision bioremediation

254th National Meeting (2017)

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