Biodegradation of polychlorinated biphenyls by rhizobia: a novel finding

Metabolism of simple aromatic compounds in rhizobial strains has been a subject of study for a few decades, due either to the significance of nutritional diversity in the inoculum survival during agricultural applications or to the importance of plant phenolics in the microbe-plant cross-talk and signal-transduction. Here, we report the capability of rhizobial strains to catabolize polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). In order to identify the genes in these strains that mediate the catabolism of PCBs we used the bphABC genes from Comamonas testosteroni strain B-356. Our results showed that genomic DNAs from all four rhizobial strains studied hybridized strongly with the Comamonas-derived probe, indicating the presence of a similar genetic system. This is a novel and interesting finding indicating for the first time, perhaps, of a role of rhizobia in recycling of aromatic compounds in nature and, certainly, opening a new avenue to be explored in the field of bioremediation.