Lactic acid-driven chain elongation in wetland soils

Here, we evaluate the presence of chain elongating organisms converting short-chain compounds (i.e., lactic and acetic acid) to medium-chain carboxylic acids (C6-C12 acids) in wetland soils. We demonstrate the enrichment of a lactic acid driven chain elongating community from wetland soils in a continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR), producing a mixture of butyric and caproic acid. The microbial community was characterized by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing of the V4-5 hypervariable regions (primer set: 515-F/926-R).