Biodegradation of acephate by Bacillus paramycoides NDZ and its degradation pathway

Acephate is widely used in agriculture, but its poisonous metabolites and poor sorption characteristics make it a serious environmental pollutant and toxicant to human health. To screen novel bacteria for biodegradation of acephate and uncover its degradation pathway, a strain called NDZ that is capable of utilizing acephate as a sole carbon and energy source was isolated from severely contaminated cultivated land. The bacterium was identified as Bacillus paramycoides based on 16S rDNA sequence analyses. The growth and degradation capacities of B. paramycoides NDZ under different conditions were studied using optical density at 600 nm (OD₆₀₀) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results showed that B. paramycoides NDZ can grow well with acephate as its sole carbon source (OD₆₀₀ = 0.76), and degraded about 76% of acephate in mineral salt medium with an initial concentration of 500 mg/L within 48 h. The results of response surface methodology revealed the optimal conditions for degradation was 36 ℃ and pH 6.85 with 526 mg/L acephate. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry showed that methamidophos was the main metabolite of B. paramycoides NDZ, different from the degradation products of high-temperature steam (121 °C, 103 kPa). Based on the detection of this intermediate, we inferred that acephate was degraded to methamidophos through hydrolysis of the amide linkage, after which methamidophos was degraded to some small molecules, which can be metabolized easily by the bacterium. In summary, B. paramycoides NDZ is a potentially useful bacterium for acephate degradation and remediation of contaminated soils.