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Updated: May 4, 2026
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Published on: October 15, 2015
Microbial dehalogenation of trichloroacetic acid
A L Weightman1, A J Weightman, J H Slater
1School of Pure and Applied Biology, University of Wales, Cardiff, PO Box 915, CF1 3TL, Cardiff, UK.
Abstract:
A pure bacterial culture and a two-membered mixed culture were isolated that degraded trichloroacetic acid if a second, readily metabolizable substrate was present in the growth medium. Previous doubts over the microbial dehalogenation of trichloroacetic acid (TCA) may be due to its inability to act as a sole carbon and energy source. TCA dehalogenation was associated with conventional 2-haloalkanoic acid dehalogenases but oxalate, the putative dehalogenase product, was not detected. CO2 was produced rapidly and concomitantly with Cl(-) ion release during dehalogenation of TCA. An alternative mechanism is suggested for TCA dehalogenation via an initial decarboxylation reaction. This mechanism predicts that carbon monoxide is a product of TCA decarboxylation and it was significant that one of the organisms isolated,Pseudomonas carboxydohydrogens, was a carboxytroph and a second was an unidentified facultative methylotroph.
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