Abstract
Abstract
Background
The interaction among microorganisms in anaerobic digestion of food waste (ADFW) reactors achieves the degradation of organics and the recycling of energy. As an important component of the microorganisms in ADFW, viruses were rarely explored. Furthermore, little is known about how viruses affect methanogenesis.
Results
Here, we recovered thousands of viral sequences from five full-scale ADFW reactors. Gene-sharing networks indicated that ADFW contained a large number of unexplored anaerobic-specific viruses. Moreover, viral communities in different full-scale reactors exhibited both commonalities and heterogeneities. Lab-scale dynamic analysis in typical scenarios further suggested that viruses have similar kinetic characteristics to their prokaryotic hosts. By associating with the putative hosts, the vast majority of bacteria and archaea phyla can be infected by viruses. Viruses may influence prokaryotic ecological niches and thus methanogenesis by infecting key functional microorganisms such as sulfate-reducing bacteria, syntrophic acetate oxidizing bacteria, and methanogens. Metabolic predictions of viruses revealed that viruses can facilitate the metabolism of sulfur and fatty acids by enhancing host metabolic capacity in key steps and participate in typical methanogenic pathways to promote methane production.
Conclusions
Overall, our results expand on the diversity of viruses in the ADFW systems and point out two ways of viral manipulation of ADFW biochemical processes.
Publisher
Research Square Platform LLC