Novel insights into the fungal oxidation of monoaromatic and biarylic environmental pollutants by characterization of two new ring cleavage enzymes

The phenol-degrading yeast Trichosporon mucoides can oxidize and detoxify biarylic environmental pollutants such as dibenzofuran, diphenyl ether and biphenyl by ring cleavage. The degradation pathways are well investigated, but the enzymes involved are not. The high similarity of hydroxylated biphenyl derivatives and phenol raised the question if the enzymes of the phenol degradation are involved in ring cleavage or whether specific enzymes are necessary. Purification of enzymes from T. mucoides with catechol cleavage activity demonstrated the existence of three different enzymes: a classical catechol-1,2-dioxygenase (CDO), not able to cleave the aromatic ring system of 3,4-dihydroxybiphenyl, and two novel enzymes with a high affinity towards 3,4-dihydroxybiphenyl. The comparison of the biochemical characteristics and mass spectrometric sequence data of these three enzymes demonstrated that they have different substrate specificities. CDO catalyzes the ortho-cleavage of dihydroxylated monoaromatic compounds, while the two novel enzymes carry out a similar reaction on biphenyl derivatives. The ring fission of 3,4-dihydroxybiphenyl by the purified enzymes results in the formation of (5-oxo-3-phenyl-2,5-dihydrofuran-2-yl)acetic acid. These results suggest that the ring cleavage enzymes catalyzing phenol degradation are not involved in the ring cleavage of biarylic compounds by this yeast, although some intermediates of the phenol metabolism may function as inducers.