Affiliation: | (1) Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology Group, School of Life Sciences, Napier University, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, 10 Colinton Road, Scotland, UK, EH10 5DT |
Abstract: | A vanillate (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzoate)-utilizing bacterium that is unable to utilize p-cresol (4-methylphenol) or 2,4-xylenol (2,4-dimethylphenol) as sole source of carbon and energy was isolated and identified as Pseudomonas fluorescens. The organism employs an inducible hydroxylase (decarboxylating), a fungal mode of attack, rather than a demethylase or methylhydroxylase as the initial step in vanillate metabolism. The product of the initial hydroxylation reaction, methoxyhydroquinone, a derivative that could only be generated with the appropriate groups, hydroxyl and carboxyl, parato each other on the benzene ring, was identified using HPLC analysis. This organism may prove useful in the commercial production of methoxyquinone and methoxyhydroquinone derivatives from renewable resources. |