Sludge Watch ==> Metagenomic study of wastewater - DNA of sludge

[Maureen Reilly]

Better sewage sought through metagenomics

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led international team has published 
the first metagenomic study of an activated sludge wastewater treatment 
process.
The metagenomic study was organized by researchers from the U.S. Department 
of Energy's Joint Genome Institute and collaborators at the University of 
Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Queensland, Australia.

The strategy entails generating DNA sequence information directly from 
samples of sewage sludge to provide a blueprint of the genes and, therefore, 
the metabolic possibilities of the wastewater environment.

approach to the study of microbial communities, with the goal of designing 
predictive models to understand how these communities function," said the 
institute's Hector Garcia Martin, lead author of the study. "With this 
information now available, there are opportunities to bioengineer the 
process to make it more reliable."
The research appears in the online edition of the journal Nature 
Biotechnology.