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Characterization of microbial communities in ethanol biorefineries

  • Environmental Microbiology - Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

Bacterial contamination of corn-based ethanol biorefineries can reduce their efficiency and hence increase their carbon footprint. To enhance our understanding of these bacterial contaminants, we temporally sampled four biorefineries in the Midwestern USA that suffered from chronic contamination and characterized their microbiomes using both 16S rRNA sequencing and shotgun metagenomics. These microbiotas were determined to be relatively simple, with 13 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) accounting for 90% of the bacterial population. They were dominated by Firmicutes (89%), with Lactobacillus comprising 80% of the OTUs from this phylum. Shotgun metagenomics confirmed our 16S rRNA data and allowed us to characterize bacterial succession at the species level, with the results of this analysis being that Lb. helveticus was the dominant contaminant in this fermentation. Taken together, these results provide insights into the microbiome of ethanol biorefineries and identifies a species likely to be commonly responsible for chronic contamination of these facilities.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants from Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and by Lallemand Inc. We acknowledge the ethanol biorefineries for providing samples, Professor Garret Suen and his team for helping with data analysis, and the analytical team from Mascoma, LLC for all their support during this project. Fernanda Firmino gratefully acknowledges the scholarship from CAPES (Brazil) to pursue her postgraduate studies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Fernanda C. Firmino & James L. Steele

  2. Lallemand Biofuels and Distilled Spirits, Lebanon, NH, USA

    Fernanda C. Firmino, Jeffery R. Broadbent & James L. Steele

  3. Norwegian University of Life Sciences, As, Akershus, Norway

    Davide Porcellato

  4. Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Madison Cox & Garret Suen

  5. Department of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA

    Jeffery R. Broadbent

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  1. Fernanda C. Firmino
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  3. Madison Cox
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Correspondence to James L. Steele.

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Firmino, F.C., Porcellato, D., Cox, M. et al. Characterization of microbial communities in ethanol biorefineries. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 47, 183–195 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-019-02254-7

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