Phylogenetic analysis and arsenate reduction effect of the arsenic-reducing bacteria enriched from contaminated soils at an abandoned smelter site

Microbial reduction of As(V) (i.e., arsenate) plays an important role in arsenic (As) mobilization in aqueous environment. In this study, we investigated As(Ⅴ) reduction characteristics of the bacteria enriched from the arsenic-contaminated soil at an abandoned smelter site. It was found that As(Ⅴ) was completely reduced to As(Ⅲ) (i.e., arsenite) in 21 h. After 3-d incubation, a yellow solid was precipitated and the concentration of As(Ⅲ) decreased sharply. After 150 h incubation, ca. 65% of soluble arsenic was removed from the solution. The analysis of the precipitate by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectrometer (SEM-EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) revealed that the main component was crystalline arsenic sulfide (ASS). Microbial mediated reduction and mobilization of adsorbed As(Ⅴ) on ferric hydroxide was also examined. In the microcosm slurry experiment, ca. 53% of the adsorbed As(V) was reduced to As(Ⅲ) by the bacteria, which resulted in an appreciable release of arsenic into aqueous phase. The released arsenic was present predominantly as As(Ⅲ). The microbial diversity was analyzed by 16S rDNA-dependent molecular phylogeny. A near-full-length 16S rDNA gene clone library was constructed. The 197 clones were analyzed using RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism) and 72 OTUs were obtained, which contributed 51% of the content for total clone number in six OTUs. Six bacterial clones in these six OTUs were selected for sequencing and the sequenced clones were found to belong to the group Caloramator, Clostridium, and Bacillus.