Novel pathway of acephate degradation by the microbial consortium ZQ01 and its potential for environmental bioremediation

Highlights: • A novel bacterial consortium, ZQ01, with highly effective degradation of acephate was obtained. • The succession of a bacterial community was observed during the degradation process. • Rapid acephate biodegradation was observed at a wide range of temperatures and pH values. • A novel metabolic pathway for the bacterial consortium's degradation of acephate was proposed. • The bioaugmentation of contaminated soils significantly enhanced the removal rate of acephate. The microbial degradation of acephate in pure cultures has been thoroughly explored, but synergistic metabolism at the community level has rarely been investigated. Here, we report a novel microbial consortium, ZQ01, capable of effectively degrading acephate and its toxic product methamidophos, which can use acephate as a source of carbon, phosphorus and nitrogen. The degradation conditions with consortium ZQ01 were optimized using response surface methodology at a temperature of 34.1 °C, a pH of 8.9, and an inoculum size of 2.4 × 10⁸ CFU·mL⁻¹, with 89.5% of 200 mg L⁻¹ acephate degradation observed within 32 h. According to the main products methamidophos, acetamide and acetic acid, a novel degradation pathway for acephate was proposed to include hydrolysis and oxidation as the main pathways of acephate degradation. Moreover, the bioaugmentation of acephate-contaminated soils with consortium ZQ01 significantly enhanced the removal rate of acephate. The results of the present work demonstrate the potential of microbial consortium ZQ01 to degrade acephate in water and soil environments, with a different and complementary acephate degradation pathway.