Abstract View
Carbonyls in Cloud Water: Their Biodegradation by Bacteria
THUONG CAO, Pierre Herckes, Ferran Garcia-Pichel, Arizona State University
Abstract Number: 411
Working Group: Bioaerosols
Abstract
Research on the microorganism-mediated conversion of organic compounds in atmospheric water (clouds and fogs) has recently emerged in the bioaerosol community. Most existing work focused on observations in pristine environments (mainly Puy de Dôme, France), and bacterial biotransformation in more polluted environments such as urban fogs is limited. Also, few observations exist on the biotransformation of carbonyl compounds in the interaction with other chemical components in cloud water. In this study, we aim to investigate the biodegradation rate of common aldehydes found in atmospheric water by bacterial strains isolated from samples collected in Bakersfield (California, USA). The initial results showed that the biodegradation of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, glyoxal, and methylglyoxal occurred at 17°C and ranged from 10-21 to 10-20 mol cell-1 s-1. These observations suggest an important role of metabolic pathways in the chemical properties of atmospheric water. Moreover, we found that the biodegradation of formaldehyde by bacteria in an artificial cloud medium is inhibited in the presence of sulfur (IV), when hydroxymethanesulfonate (HMSA) has been formed.