Browsing by Author "Egiddi, Matteo"
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- Metabolic fingerprinting of recirculating aquaculture systems: a pilot application of untargeted metabolomics to describe biological rectorsPublication . Egiddi, Matteo; Cabrita, Elsa; Espinal, CarlosLand-based recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) can boost food security and environmental sustainability worldwide. In RAS, the removal of nitrogenous waste is obtained via prokaryotic biodegradation. However, the spatiotemporal metabolic dynamics of microbial communities in RAS are poorly understood. Understanding these trends can generate operational improvements. The necessity for fast and cost-effectiveness analysis suggests the employment of top-down molecular techniques. This pilot study evaluated the applicability of untargeted metabolomics to describe metabolic trends in RAS bioreactors. We compared two reactor designs, a two-stage moving bed bioreactor (MBBR) and an anaerobic batch fed sludge bioreactor (BFDR), as well as different locations within each of these (i.e., inlets vs outlets). As expected, a differentiation in metabolomic fingerprints determined by different chemo-mechanical properties was highlighted between the two bioreactors. However, contrarily to our initial hypotheses, no differentiation was found within the MBBR. Possible explanation can be identified in a vessel-wide distribution of a single microbial community, as well as in the influence of ammonia-limiting conditions and short hydraulic retention time. Unexpectedly, however, a significant differentiation was found within the BFDR, where two distinct metabolic fingerprints were recorded, inferring on the presence of a community in suspension to be further investigated. We demonstrated how metabolomics analysis can reveal RAS bioreactor metabolic dynamics and at the same time expose the unsuccessful design of specific biomechanical properties.