Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction for Microbial Growth Kinetics of Mixed Culture System.

Microbial growth kinetics is often used to optimize environmental processes owing to its relation to the breakdown of substrate (contaminants). However, the quantification of bacterial populations in the environment is difficult owing to the challenges of monitoring a specific bacterial population within a diverse microbial community. Conventional methods are unable to detect and quantify the growth of individual strains separately in the mixed culture reactor.

Microbial community analysis of Deepwater Horizon oil-spill impacted sites along the Gulf coast using functional and phylogenetic markers.

We investigated the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on microbial communities in wetland sediment and seawater samples collected from sites along the Gulf shore. Based on GC/MS analysis, the sediment from Bay Jimmy, LA had detectable signs of hydrocarbon contamination, identified as n-alkanes in the GC/MS spectrum similar to that of the Deepwater Horizon source oil (MC-252). To identify changes in microbial assemblage structure and functional diversity in response to hydrocarbon contamination, five genes (bacterial 16S rRNA, Pseudomonas-specific 16S rRNA, alkB, P450, and PAH-RHDα) were selected based on the specific enzymes encoded by bacteria to degrade alkanes or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.