Full metadata
Title
Assessing Biofilm Growth on Pristine and Aged Microplastics Exposed to Tempe Town Lake Water
Description
This study investigated the difference in biofilm growth on pristine and aged polypropylene microplastics exposed to Tempe Town Lake water for 8 weeks. The research question here is, does the aging of microplastic (MPs) change the biofilm formation rate and composition of the biofilm in comparison with the pristine MPs. To answer this question, the biofilm formation was quantified using different methods over time for both pristine polypropylene and aged polypropylene using agar plate counts and crystal violet staining. Colony counts based on agar plating showed an increase in microbial growth over the 8 weeks of treatment, with the aged MPs accumulating higher microbial counts than the pristine MPs. The diversity of the biofilm decreased over time for both MPs and the aged MPs had overall less diversity in biofilm, based on phenotype enumeration, in comparison with the pristine MPs. Higher biofilm growth on aged MPs was confirmed using crystal violet staining, which stains the negatively charged biological compounds such as proteins and the extracellular polymeric substance matrix of the biofilm. Using this complementary approach to colony counting, the same trend of higher biofilm growth on aged MPs was found. Further studies will focus on confirming the phenotype findings using microbiome analysis following DNA extraction. This project created a methodology to quantify biofilm formation on MPs, which was used to show that MPs may accumulate more biofilms in the environment as they age under sunlight.
Date Created
2022
Contributors
- Mushro, Noelle (Author)
- Perreault, Francois (Thesis advisor)
- Hamilton, Kerry (Committee member)
- Krajmalnik-Brown, Rosa (Committee member)
- Arizona State University (Publisher)
Topical Subject
Resource Type
Extent
38 pages
Language
eng
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Peer-reviewed
No
Open Access
No
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.171635
Level of coding
minimal
Cataloging Standards
Note
Partial requirement for: M.S., Arizona State University, 2022
Field of study: Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering
System Created
- 2022-12-20 06:19:18
System Modified
- 2022-12-20 06:19:18
- 1 year 11 months ago
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