https://video.igem.org/videos/watch/370a870a-b2e4-4bb0-aa28-384a26d16201 Title: Divide and Conquer: Multi-Functional Engineered Aspergillus niger Consortium Remediating Composite Wastewater Description: High-salinity composite wastewater presents a formidable environmental challenge due to the simultaneous presence of severe osmotic stress and a toxic cocktail of co-existing pollutants, including aromatic compounds, phosphorus, and heavy metals. Conventional remediation relies on complex, multi-stage physicochemical processes that entail heavy chemical inputs, extensive multi-reactor footprints, and exorbitant operational costs. While engineering a single microbial strain offers an eco-friendly alternative, it inherently fails in such harsh scenarios; crowding highly diverse and conflicting metabolic pathways into a single host triggers severe intracellular cross-interference, metabolic overload, and genomic instability. To break these bottlenecks, our project designed a multifunctional synthetic community composed of functionally distinct Aspergillus niger strains, termed HYDRA (Hyper-saline Yet Degrading, Recovering & Adsorbing Aspergillus Consortium). By leveraging the fungus's robust environmental resilience, we strategically distributed four core genetic functional modules—salt tolerance, aromatic degradation, vacuolar phosphorus enrichment, and mycelial heavy metal adsorption—across specialized strains. This strategic division of labor drives a revolutionary paradigm shift from conventional multi-stage treatments to a streamlined, one-step biological operation. Crucially, by utilizing A. niger’s natural tendency to form dense mycelial pellets, the HYDRA platform enables effortless biomass-water separation, successfully overcoming the notorious post-treatment harvesting bottleneck of typical bacterial systems and offering a highly scalable, all-in-one strategy for complex industrial effluents. Wiki | Official Page Tue, 01 Sep 2026 16:54:09 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://video.igem.org https://video.igem.org/client/assets/images/icons/icon-1500x1500.png https://video.igem.org/videos/watch/370a870a-b2e4-4bb0-aa28-384a26d16201 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://video.igem.org/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.