Resource recovery from wastewater: application of meta-omics to phosphorus and carbon management

• Meta-omics improves biological understanding of EBPR and anaerobic digestion.
• Metagenomic analyses are transitioning from gene-centric to genome-centric.
• Insights are emerging from meta-transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics uses.
• Challenges remain in translating meta-omics information into engineering design.

A growing trend at wastewater treatment plants is the recovery of resources and energy from wastewater. Enhanced biological phosphorus removal and anaerobic digestion are two established biotechnology approaches for the recovery of phosphorus and carbon, respectively. Meta-omics approaches (meta-genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) are providing novel biological insights into these complex biological systems. In particular, genome-centric metagenomics analyses are revealing the function and physiology of individual community members. Querying transcripts, proteins and metabolites are emerging techniques that can inform the cellular responses under different conditions. Overall, meta-omics approaches are shedding light into complex microbial communities once regarded as ‘blackboxes’, but challenges remain to integrate information from meta-omics into engineering design and operation guidelines.

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