Metabolism of naphthalene by the biphenyl-degrading bacterium Pseudomonas paucimobilis Q1

Pseudomonas paucimobilis Q1 originally isolated as biphenyl degrading organism (Furukawa et al. 1983), was shown to grow with naphthalene. After growth with biphenyl or naphthalene the strain synthesized the same enzyme for the ring cleavage of 2,3-dihydroxybiphenyl or 1,2-dihydroxynaphthalene. The enzyme, although characterized as 2,3-dihydroxybiphenyl dioxygenase (Taira et al. 1988), exhibited considerably higher relative activity with 1,2-dihydroxynaphthalene. These results demonstrate that this enzyme can function both in the naphthalene and biphenyl degradative pathway.