Biodegradation of polychlorinated biphenyls by aerobic bacteria

Conference · Mon Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1990 · American Chemical Society, Division of Environmental Chemistry, Preprints; (USA)

OSTI ID:6628083

Adriaens, P; Focht, D D ^[1]

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1. Univ. of California, Riverside (USA)

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are not readily decomposed by microorganisms in the environment. To the best of our knowledge, there are no known microbial species that use PCBs as a sole carbon source for growth. However, recent evidence indicates that bacteria which can utilize biphenyl as a growth substrate, are able to cometabolize PCBs to chlorobenzoates and other dead-end products. These products in turn are cometabolized or utilized as growth substrates by other bacteria. Thus, mineralization of PCBs can be demonstrated in soil by the mixed microflora upon the addition of biphenyl or in vitro by axenic co-cultures of bacteria containing the complementary parts of the total catabolic pathway. Combining the genes from parental strains containing the complete catabolic pathway into a single bacterial strain, that can utilize one or more PCB congeners as growth substrates, may also be a viable genetic approach to the destruction of PCBs.

• OSTI ID: 6628083
• Report Number(s): CONF-900402--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: American Chemical Society, Division of Environmental Chemistry, Preprints; (USA) Journal Volume: 30:1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540220* -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (1990-)
AEROBIC CONDITIONS
AROMATICS
BACTERIA
BIODEGRADATION
BIPHENYL
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
DATA ANALYSIS
DECOMPOSITION
DOCUMENT TYPES
HYDROCARBONS
MEASURING METHODS
MICROORGANISMS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PROCEEDINGS