Isolation of volatile sulfur-containing microbial catabolites of biotin

A soil pseudomonad was grown on biotin as sole source of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur. A product of thiolane ring degradation, methyl thioacetate, was isolated by Tenax trapping and identified by GC-Mass spectrometry in comparison to the synthetic compound. H2S is another catabolite which was isolated via heavy metal trapping and was quantified in culture supernatant. Studies of acetylation and methylation activities of broken pseudomonad cells indicated that methyl thioacetate may be formed by chemical alterations of H2S as the primary sulfur-containing catabolite of biotin. H2S can also serve as sole sulfur source for the pseudomonad.