TY - JOUR
T1 - A rapid ATP-based method for determining active microbial populations in mineral leach liquors
AU - Okibe, Naoko
AU - Johnson, D. Barrie
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to Dr. Mariekie Gericke (Mintek, South Africa) for supplying the mineral concentrates and the corresponding analytical data. This work was carried out in the frame of BioMinE (European project contract NMP1-CT-500329-1). The authors acknowledge the financial support given to this project by the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Development. We also wish to thank our various partners on the project for their contributions to the work reported in this paper. DBJ is grateful to the Royal Society (U.K.) for the award of an Industrial Fellowship.
Copyright:
Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2011/7
Y1 - 2011/7
N2 - An empirical technique for the rapid assessment of active biomass of acidophilic microorganisms in pure cultures and in leach liquors from mineral bio-processing operations is described. The method is based on the measurement of ATP concentrations in test solutions, using commercially-available kits and a portable luminometer. The ATP contents of five Gram-negative biomining bacteria mineral-degrading acidophiles assayed varied from 0.87 × 10-20 to 18 × 10-20 mol per cell in actively-growing cultures. Depletion of ferrous iron in cultures of a strain of Leptospirillum ferriphilum resulted in rapid mortality of the iron-oxidizing bacterium (denoted by decreasing numbers of plate isolates) and corresponding changes in ATP concentrations in culture aliquots. The technique was applied successfully to mineral leachates from stirred tank biomining operations, where it was shown to determine populations of active microorganisms in liquors where most of the cells present were not viable. The method is highly sensitive (detecting as few as 103 acidophiles ml-1 of test solution) and would therefore have generic application in monitoring microbial populations in other types of biomining operations, such as heap bioreactors.
AB - An empirical technique for the rapid assessment of active biomass of acidophilic microorganisms in pure cultures and in leach liquors from mineral bio-processing operations is described. The method is based on the measurement of ATP concentrations in test solutions, using commercially-available kits and a portable luminometer. The ATP contents of five Gram-negative biomining bacteria mineral-degrading acidophiles assayed varied from 0.87 × 10-20 to 18 × 10-20 mol per cell in actively-growing cultures. Depletion of ferrous iron in cultures of a strain of Leptospirillum ferriphilum resulted in rapid mortality of the iron-oxidizing bacterium (denoted by decreasing numbers of plate isolates) and corresponding changes in ATP concentrations in culture aliquots. The technique was applied successfully to mineral leachates from stirred tank biomining operations, where it was shown to determine populations of active microorganisms in liquors where most of the cells present were not viable. The method is highly sensitive (detecting as few as 103 acidophiles ml-1 of test solution) and would therefore have generic application in monitoring microbial populations in other types of biomining operations, such as heap bioreactors.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.hydromet.2011.04.008
DO - 10.1016/j.hydromet.2011.04.008
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79958017257
SN - 0304-386X
VL - 108
SP - 195
EP - 198
JO - Hydrometallurgy
JF - Hydrometallurgy
IS - 3-4
ER -