MONITORING OF MICROBIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY BY MEANS OF:

Index

• 1. QUANTIFICATION OF ENZYME ACTIVITIES
• 2. ATP QUANTIFICATION
• 3. MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

1. QUANTIFICATION OF ENZYME ACTIVITIES

DEHYDROGENASE

Intracellular enzyme responsible for the biological oxidation of organic compounds in soil and therefore a good indicator of the degree of biodegradation of a contaminant.

URESA

Extracellular enzyme responsible for the hydrolysis of urea to ammonium. It allows to evaluate the bioavailability of ammonium in the soil as a source of N for microorganisms, a key factor during the process of biological assimilation of the contaminant.

2. ATP QUANTIFICATION

Adenosine triphosphate is a nucleotide that is present in all living cells, representing their main source of energy. The presence of this molecule is therefore used as an indicator of the active biomass in a system.

3. MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

DNA-METABARCODING

Massive sequencing technique that allows to determine the diversity within the same domain (usually bacteria, archaea, fungi or algae) by providing a value in percentage of the relative abundance of the different genera or even species within the same taxonomic category.

QUANTITATIVE PCR (qPCR)

A technique that combines DNA amplification and detection in a single step by correlating the PCR product amplified in each of the cycles with a fluorescence signal. This technique allows to visualize the reaction in real time and accurately quantify the DNA associated with the species of interest present in the sample.

PHYTOTOXICITY TESTS

A test in which certain plants are subjected to the presence of a pollutant in order to evaluate its toxic effect on the germination and development of the plant. The information obtained from these environmental biomarkers can be used to enrich (i) environmental impact studies (ii) Quantitative Risk Analysis on contaminated ecosystems, as well as (iii) to evaluate the positive effect of bioremediation on soil fertility after decontamination.