Biotransformation of chloroaromatics: the impact of bioavailability and substrate specificity

The effect of surfactants on the biodegradation of mono-aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene, chlorobenzene and 1,2-dichlorobenzene by an Escherichia coli JMI09(MI) recombinant strain, carrying a gene cluster containing the genes for benzene dioxygenase, cis-benzene dihydrodiol dehydrogenase, and catechol 2,3-dioxygenase from Pseudomonas putida ML2, has been investigated. We observed that the efficiency of the benzene dioxygenase catalyzed conversions to cis-dihydrodiols depends on the balance among real substrate specificity, bioavailability, and toxicity effects of highly concentrated aromatic hydrocarbons. The utilization of non ionic surfactants makes it possible to partly overcome the limiting step of biodegradation processes for scarcely water soluble hydrocarbons hindered by their limited bioavailability.Furthermore the cis-benzene dihydrodiol dehydrogenase and the extradiol catechol 2,3-dioxygenase, which in the presently analyzed biodegradative pathway should further degrade the pollutants, are known, the first to be selectively specific for the (lR,2R)-dihydrodiol derivative which is not produced by the benzene dioxygenase, the second, to be dead-end inhibited by the corresponding chlorinated catechois. In the present example this results in the accumulation of the corresponding chlorinated cis-dihydrodiols which can be useful for asymmetric synthesis.On the other hand the practical utilization of the system for bioremediation purposes requires the efficient conversion of the chlorinated catechols by specific intradiol ring-cleaving dioxygenases, the crystal structures of some of these last enzymes are currently under analysis in our laboratory to understand the structuralfunctional correlations. Preliminary data show overall structures similar to the catechol 1,2-dioxygenase from Acinetobacter sp. ADP1 thus suggesting that the substrate specificity differences are mainly related to subtle differences in the catalytic site.