Metagenomic Comparison Among Microbial Communities of Different Organic Fractions of Municipal Solid Waste

Although the organic matter originated from the household waste treatment facilities is a potential source with agronomic properties as fertilizer and soil amendment, the digestate products could contain pathogens or otherwise harmful microorganisms. This work aimed to investigate, in three different process plants, by using the metagenomics analysis, the bacterial population of organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) at the beginning and at the end of the digestion process. For the analysis, the bacterial DNA was extracted using a commercial kit and 16S rRNA gene amplicons on V3-V4 region analyzed by Miseq (Illumina). Preliminary results showed that the bacterial community of OFMSW samples was dominated by Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Bacteriodetes, while the output digestates revealed higher presence of Synergistetes, Thermotogae and Euryarcheota. And more, in two out of the three different process plants, Clostridiaceae increased in the output digestate with Thermo anaerobacteriaceae, while in the remaining process plant Methanosarcinaceae were predominant. This study provides new insights into microbiota evolution of OFMSW digestate giving an overview on what is used as fertilizer.