Bioleaching of Gold Ore

RESEARCH ART I C L E
Insights intothe dynamics of bacterial communities during chalcopyrite bioleaching
Zhiguo He1,2, Fengling Gao1,2, Jiancun Zhao1,2, Yuehua Hu1,2 & Guanzhou Qiu1,2
1School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China; and 2Key Laboratory of Biometallurgy, Ministry of Education, Changsha, Hunan, China
Correspondence: Zhiguo He, School of
Minerals Processing and Bioengineering,
Central South University, Changsha, Hunan
410083, China. Tel./fax: [phone]; e-mail: [e-mail]
Received 19 December 2009; revised 14 April
2010; accepted 17 June 2010.
Final version published online 3 August 2010.
DOI:10.1111/j.1574-6941.2010.00943.x
Editor: Alfons Stams
Keywords
DGGE; RFLP; bioleaching; acid mine drainage; chalcopyrite. Abstract
The microbial ecology of the bioleaching of chalcopyrite ores is poorly understood and little effort has been made to handle the microbiological components of these processes. In this study, the composition and structure of microbial communities in acid mineral bioleaching systems have been studied using a PCR-based cloning approach. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis of PCRamplified
16S rRNA gene fragments from bacteria was used to evaluate the changes in the bacterial community in the process of chalcopyrite bioleaching in a shaken flask system. The results revealed that the bacterial community was disturbed after the addition of chalcopyrite. Phylogenetic analyses of 16S rRNA gene fragments revealed that the retrieved sequences clustered together with the genera Acidithiobacillus, Leptospirillum, and Acidovorax. Multidimensional scaling analysis of DGGE banding patterns revealed that the process of chalcopyrite bioleaching in 46 days was divided into four stages. In the first stage, Leptospirillum were dominant. In the second stage, Leptospirillum and Acidithiobacillus groups were mainly detected. In the third and

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