Metaproteomics applied to activated sludge for industrial wastewater treatment revealed the dominance of Hyphomicrobium zavarzinii.

Biological processes are considered the conventional treatment for wastewater since almost a century. Different microbial populations often cooperate in the degradation of pollutants present in wastewater and they represent the biomass of the so-called activated sludge. Several tools were developed for the characterization of these microbial consortia: microscopy, physical determinations, respirometry, molecular tools. Improved understanding of microbial consortia in activated sludge requires deep investigation including functional analysis. Metagenomics was recently applied to wastewater treatment plants. Technical advances in mass spectrometry (MS) enabled the proteome analysis of complex microbial communities in environmental samples such as those of municipal wastewater treatments. In this work the metabolic behavior of the biomass of a lab-scale plant treating industrial pharmaceutical wastewater was investigated.