Unexpected diversity of dye-decolorizing peroxidases

Dye-decolorizing peroxidase (DyP)-type peroxidases are a family of heme-containing peroxidases. Because DyP-type peroxidases can degrade recalcitrant anthraquinone dyes and lignin, their potential applications in the treatment of wastewater containing dyes and lignin degradation are expected. Although many DyP-type peroxidases have been characterized experimentally, most of the reported DyP-type peroxidases are from basidiomycetous fungi and bacteria. Therefore, the taxonomic distribution of the DyP-type peroxidases remains unclear. In this study, we analyzed the phylogenetic tree using all DyP-type peroxidase sequences available in the InterPro database. The findings mainly divided this family into three classes. Metazoa and Archaea also have the genes coding for DyP-type peroxidases, and the sequences belonging to two subclasses have the pyruvate formate lyase or cytochrome P450 domain in addition to the DyP domain. This study reveals differences in the conservation of important residues among classes. The findings will accelerate research on the DyP-type peroxidase family.