Several Eastern Harris County communities lie near the now enclosed San Jacinto River (SJR) Waste Pit Superfund, a dumping ground for chlorinated dioxins and other paper mill waste products. Currently, no active monitoring of the SJR is conducted for these toxins with the exact concentration and health impact to the area unknown. As such, remediation and monitoring efforts outside of the Superfund itself could be necessary. To better understand the possible environmental fate of these aromatics, here we provide a shotgun metagenomic analysis of the structural and putative functional diversity of the SJR microbiome from two impacted Channelview, Texas communities bordering the Superfund. Results show that the underlying SJR microbiome possesses a core of metabolic enzymes related to the β-ketoadipate and benzoate degradation pathways. This suggests possible endpoints for many aromatics found deposited in the SJR including dioxin-like compounds. However, degradation biomarkers related to the priming and initial cleavage of chlorinated dioxin-like aromatics while present, are poorly concentrated across sampled sites. This may be due in part to decreased coverage of low abundance bacterial species, but also be a contributing factor leading to increased recalcitrance of these compounds in this environment compared to other aromatics.

中文翻译：

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从圣哈辛托河河岸收集的本地细菌的弹枪宏基因组学，用于芳香性废物的生物降解。

哈里斯县东部的几个社区位于现已封闭的圣哈辛托河（SJR）废物坑超级基金附近，该废物坑是氯化二恶英和其他造纸厂废物产品的倾倒场。目前，尚无针对这些毒素的SJR主动监测，其确切浓度和对未知区域的健康影响均如此。因此，可能有必要在超级基金本身之外进行补救和监督。为了更好地理解这些芳族化合物的可能的环境命运，在这里，我们提供了从超级基金毗邻的两个受影响的得克萨斯州Channelview社区对SJR微生物组的结构和推定功能多样性的shot弹枪宏基因组分析。结果表明，潜在的SJR微生物组拥有与β-酮己二酸和苯甲酸酯降解途径相关的代谢酶核心。这表明沉积在SJR中的许多芳族化合物（包括二恶英类化合物）的可能终点。但是，与存在的氯化二恶英样芳族化合物的引发和初始裂解有关的降解生物标志物在整个采样点上的浓度很低。这可能部分是由于低丰度细菌种类的覆盖率降低所致，但也可能是导致这些化合物在此环境中与其他芳族化合物相比增加难降解性的一个促成因素。