| Summary: | The WBC-2 consortium was characterized using quantitative PCR and analytical techniques to associate growth of dechlorinating bacteria to each step of the 1,1,2,2-Tetrachloroethane (TeCA) degradation pathway. The consortium was found to degrade TeCA through dichloroelimination to trans-1,2-dichloroethene (tDCE), and reductive dehalogenation to Vinyl Chloride (VC) and ethene. Thus the pathway was hypothesized to provide three distinct niches for three genera of dechlorinating bacteria, Dehalobacter, Dehalogenimonas and Dehalococcoides. Using qPCR to track growth over two time course experiments at different inoculum dilutions, the Dehalobacter species showed significant growth on the first step of TeCA dihaloelimination to tDCE Dehalococcoides and Dehalogenimonas species grew on the dechlorination products. The Dehalogenimonas species, a novel non-Dehalococcoides, was found to grow only on tDCE. The Dehalococcoides species also grew on cDCE, less well on tDCE, and on VC.
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