Denitrification characterization of dissolved oxygen microprofiles in lake surface sediment through analyzing abundance, expression, community composition and enzymatic activities of denitrifier functional genes

The responses of denitrifiers and denitrification ability to dissolved oxygen (DO) concent in different layers of surface lake sediments are still poorly understood. Here, the optimal denitrification condition was constructed based on response surface methodology (RSM) to analyze the denitrification characteristics of surface sediments. The aerobic zone (AEZ), hypoxic zone (HYZ), up-anoxic zone (ANZ-1) and sub-anoxic zone (ANZ-2) were partitioned based on the oxygen contents, and sediments were collected using a customized-designed sub-millimeter scale sampling device. Integrated real-time quantitative PCR, Illumina Miseq-based sequencing and denitrifying enzyme activities analysis revealed that denitrification characteristics varied among different DO layers. Among the four layers, the DNA abundance and RNA expression levels of norB, nirS and nosZ were the highest at the aerobic layer, hypoxic layer and up-axoic layer, respectively. The hypoxia and up-anaerobic layer were the active nitrogen removal layers, since these two layers displayed the highest DNA abundance, RNA expression level and enzyme activities of denitrification functional genes. The abundance of major denitrifying bacteria showed significant differences among layers, with Azoarcus, Pseudogulbenkiania and Rhizobium identified as the main nirS, nirK and nosZ-based denitrifiers. Pearson’s correlation revealed that the response of denitrifiers to environmental factors differed greatly among DO layers. Furthermore, napA showed higher DNA abundance and RNA expression level in the aerobic and hypoxic layers than anaerobic layers, indicating that aerobic denitrifiers might play important roles at these layers. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13568-019-0855-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.