Table 4 Identification of observed TRF combinations AluI a RsaI a Clone libraryb RDP databasec 93 74 – Unclassified Euryarchaota 142 Out of ranged – Methanosarcina 176 74 Methanosaeta Methanosaeta 176
238/239 – Methanomicrobia 176 Out of range – Unclassified Euryarchaota 184/185 74/77 Methanosaeta Methanosaeta Unclassified Euryarchaota Thermoplasmatales Methanomicrobiales Methanosarcinales 184/185 142 – Unclassified Euryarchaota 184/185 238/239 Methanosaeta Methanosaeta Unclassified Euryarchaota Methanomicrobia Methanosarcinales 184/185 259 ARC I Unclassified Euryarchaota Thermoplasmatales Methanomicrobiales 184/185 Out of range – Unclassified Euryarchaota Unclassified Archaea Methanosarcinales Out of range 74/77 – Unclassified Euryarchaota Unclassified Archaea Out of range 238/239 – Unclassified AMN-107 clinical trial Euryarchaota AZD1152 Methanosarcinales
Out of range 259 – Unclassified Euryarchaota a Observed TRF combinations that are not included in the table were not found in the database nor in the clone library. b Identification by comparison with predicted TRF lengths of clone library sequences. c Identification by comparison with predicted TRF lengths of RDP database sequences. d Out of range: The TRF in the database or the clone library was either shorter than 50 bases or longer than 1020 bases and would therefore not have been detected. Correlation analysis Several TRFs showed a significant correlation with process parameters (Table 5). The parameters that correlated with most TRFs were water temperature and nitrogen concentration. There were also significant correlations between several TRFs and the sludge and effluent water properties (Table 6). The parameter effluent non-settleable solids (NSS) and the concentration of carbohydrates in extracted extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) correlated with most
TRFs. No TRF showed a significant correlation with the sludge volume or shear sensitivity. Table 5 Correlations between TRF abundances and WWTP process parameters a AluI Identityb, c Observationsd Temp.e SRTf F/Mg CODh NO23-Ni AluI Farnesyltransferase 142 Methanosarcina b 2 ** AluI 176 Methanosaeta c 24 ** * AluI 184 Methanosaeta c 33 * * RsaI RsaI 142 Euryarchaeota b 3 *** * RsaI 238 Methanosaeta c 31 * * * RsaI 259 ARC I c 4 *** * a The correlations are marked with asterisks corresponding to the level of statistical significance: 95% (*), 99% (**) and 99.9% (***). TRFs that are not included did not show any statistically significant correlation with any parameter. The WWTP process parameter data was taken from [22]. b Identification by comparison with the RDP database. c Identification by comparison with the clone library. d The number of times the TRF was observed. e Water temperature (°C). f Solids retention time (days). g Food to mass ratio ( g/kg*s).