Developing a field microbial biodegradation activity monitoring method based on the detection of adenosine phosphate (ATP, ADP and AMP) for petroleum-contaminated groundwater

As the focus of microbial degradation kinetics research, microbial activity detection is essential for the study of microbial degradation of contaminated groundwater. In this paper, luciferase assay was used to determine the microbial activity, and a rapid quantitative method for the determination of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and adenosine monophosphate (AMP) was developed. The experiment on microorganism of petroleum-contaminated groundwater was compared with ultraviolet and visible spectrophotometry (UV spectrophotometry) and plate count. Then, the practicability of the method for microbial degradation of petroleum-contaminated ground-water was verified. The results were as follows: the method had a detection range of 0.025-50 ppb, and each test took 10-15 s. The RSD of ATP, ADP, and AMP were 10.03, 2.84, and 6.57, respectively, and the R-2 values of the standard curve were all >0.99, the method was accurate and precise; the correlation coefficients of UV spectrophotometry were all >0.99, and the correlation coefficients of plate count were all >0.98, the P-values were both <0.001. The results showed that the luciferase assay method developed in this study was convenient, fast, reliable, and economical.