ULIXES

Unravelling and exploiting Mediterranean Sea microbial diversity and ecology for Xenobiotics’ and pollutants’ clean up

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The project ULIXES aims to unravel, categorize, catalogue, exploit and manage the microbial diversity available in the Mediterranean Sea for addressing bioremediation of polluted marine sites. The idea behind ULIXES is that the multitude of diverse environmental niches of the Mediterranean Sea contains a huge range of microorganisms and their components (e.g. catabolic enzymes) or products (e.g. biosurfactant) that can be exploited in pollutant- and site-tailored bioremediation approaches. ULIXES intends to provide the proof of concept that it is possible to establish and exploit for bioremediation site-specific collections of microbial strains, mixed microbial cultures, enzymes, biosurfactants and other microbial products. These biotechnological resources will be mined by using approaches based on isolation of culturable microorganisms as well as by extensively applying advanced novel ‘meta-omics’ technologies recently developed by the project partners and exclusively available for ULIXES. Three pollutant classes recognized worldwide as environmental priorities will be considered: petroleum hydrocarbons, chlorinated compounds and heavy metals. A large set of polluted environmental matrices from sites located all over the Mediterranean Sea will be explored, including seashore sands, lagoon sediments, deep sea sediments polluted by heavy oil hydrocarbons at oil tanker shipwreck sites, hypersaline waters and sediments from polluted salty coastal lakes and natural deep hypersaline anoxic submarine basins and mud volcanoes where hydrocarbon seepages occur. The mined collections of microbial biotechnological products will be exploited for development of novel improved bioremediation processes whose effectiveness will be proved by ex situ and in situ field bioremediation trials. A careful dissemination action will be pursued to assure capillary information of the ULIXES results and products to stakeholders and SMEs operating in the sector of marine bioremediation.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

European researchers have created the largest-ever collection of microorganisms from the Mediterranean Sea, in search of microbes that can help treat marine pollution.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The position of the Mediterranean Sea combined with its heavy maritime traffic makes it inherently prone to pollution. In the past, oil spill accidents from pipelines and oil tanker shipwrecks resulted in various parts of the basin becoming extensively polluted.

Many of these sites, especially on the African coastal areas, have been overlooked for remediation efforts. The EU-funded http://www.ulixes.unimi.it/ (ULIXES) initiative addressed this problem by studying microbial diversity in both clean and polluted sites of the Mediterranean Sea.

Bioremediation entails either the stimulation of local microbial communities to remove pollutants, or augmentation of the polluted site through the introduction of laboratory-enriched microbes. The information generated by ULIXES provides resources for future bioremediation of polluted marine sites.

The ULIXES consortium searched the Mediterranean Sea for microbes and metabolites that could be used in bioremediation efforts. Researchers focused on microbes that can degrade hydrocarbons and halogenated compounds. Some of the collected microbial species were also evaluated for long-term bioremediation processes.

Additionally, researchers recorded the diversity of microbes encountered in polluted sites and studied the metabolic pathways involved in natural remediation processes. They created a database of microbes from polluted environments and a geographical map linking the different contaminated sites with certain microbial species.

By performing a high-throughput analysis of the microbes in the Mediterranean, the ULIXES consortium provided an unprecedented collection of useful microorganisms and compounds. With further study, these microbes could be used to treat environmental pollution.