Abstract

Guiyu, a town in south China, seriously polluted by heavy metals and toxic organic compounds, takes an important part in the cycle of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment. Here, culture-independent approaches were used to analyze the bacterial community structure of 7 soil and sediment samples. The objective of this paper was to examine the distribution of microbial communities in the e-waste contaminated areas of Guiyu. High concentrations of metals (Cu, Pb, Zn and Al) were detected in the soil and sediment samples collected from the e-waste contaminated areas at Guiyu. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and 16S rRNA gene library technology were used to investigate the microbial communities. The 16S rRNA gene library could detect more bacteria than polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-DGGE. The main bacteria in the soil and sediment samples were Deltaproteobacteria (36%), Firmicutes (16%),Alphaproteobacteria (9%), Bacteroidetes (7%), Verrucomicrobia (7%) and Acidobacteria(5%); and 20% of the sequences in the 16S rRNA gene library had sequence identities less than 92% with known sequences.

Key words: Guiyu, microbial diversity, DGGE, 16S rRNA gene library.