Analogue enrichment of aromatic degradation through application of lignin-derived phenols

The influence of vanillin substrates on the 13C-signatures as identified on the 16S rRNA gene profiles present in the bacterial population were explored using metagenomic procedures _ primarily based on DNA stable isotope probing, coupled with Illumina sequencing of labelled DNA, and bioinformatics analysis (Kaiju, Hmmer and Krona).

Naturally occurring lignin-derived phenols (vanillin) are found to have influence on the phylogenetic and functional genes of the diverse bacterial population responsible for degradation of naphthalene (and PAH other cocktails) in the PAH-contaminated urban soils. The bacterial population implicated in this study are primarily from the Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Terrabacteria phyla. Specifically, these bacteria are Sphingomonas spp, Sphingobium spp, Bradyrhizobium spp, and Brevundimonas spp.