Enzymatic degradation of trichloroethylene using enzyme extracts isolated from a bacterial consortium

Degradation of trichloroethylene (TCE) using crude enzyme extracts from a bacterial consortium was examined for wastewater treatment. The effects of pH, chemical induction, and cofactor were investigated. Enzyme extracts showed an optimal activity (3.03 +/- 0.03 mg of TCE/[mg of protein x d]) at neutral pH (6.5-7.5). In an attempt to increase the production of effective enzymes for TCE degradation, chemical induction using both toluene and TCE in the growth of the bacterium consortium was conducted. Although the induction increased the overall production of protein by about fourfold, the activity of the extracts was only slightly improved (up to 3.40 mg of TCE/[mg of protein x d]), indicating that the induction did not specifically enhance the production of TCE-degrading enzymes. Interestingly, the addition of a cofactor (up to 0.02 mg/mL), NADH, led to an initial reaction rate of 5.30 +/- 0.05 mg of TCE/(mg of protein x d). This observation demonstrated that the availability of the cofactor played an important role in determining the overall degradation reaction rates. The observations with NADH were in agreement with the assumption that toluene monooxygenases (which are NADH dependent) are the key enzymes for the degradation reactions.