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Degradation of phenanthrene and naphthalene by a Burkholderia species strain
1Department of Biology and Institute of Life Science, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea.
Abstract:
Burkholderia sp. TNFYE-5 was isolated from soil for the ability to grow on phenanthrene as sole carbon and energy source. Unlike most other phenanthrene-degrading bacteria, TNFYE-5 was unable to grow on naphthalene. Growth substrate range experiments coupled with the ring-cleavage enzyme assay data suggest that TNFYE-5 initially metabolizes phenanthrene to 1-hydroxy-2-naphthoate with subsequent degradation through the phthalate and protocatechuate and beta-ketoadipate pathway. A metabolite in the degradation of naphthalene by TNFYE-5 was isolated by high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and was identified as salicylate by UV-visible spectral and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analyses. Thus, the inability to degrade salicylate is apparently one major reason for the incapability of TNFYE-5 to grow on naphthalene.
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