1 research outputs found
<i>In Silico</i> Identification of Bioremediation Potential: Carbamazepine and Other Recalcitrant Personal Care Products
Emerging contaminants are principally
personal care products not
readily removed by conventional wastewater treatment and, with an
increasing reliance on water recycling, become disseminated in drinking
water supplies. Carbamazepine, a widely used neuroactive pharmaceutical,
increasingly escapes wastewater treatment and is found in potable
water. In this study, a mechanism is proposed by which carbamazepine
resists biodegradation, and a previously unknown microbial biodegradation
was predicted computationally. The prediction identified biphenyl
dioxygenase from <i>Paraburkholderia xenovorans</i> LB400
as the best candidate enzyme for metabolizing carbamazepine. The rate
of degradation described here is 40 times greater than the best reported
rates. The metabolites <i>cis</i>-10,11-dihydroxy-10,11-dihydrocarbamazepine
and <i>cis</i>-2,3-dihydroxy-2,3-dihydrocarbamazepine were
demonstrated with the native organism and a recombinant host. The
metabolites are considered nonharmful and mitigate the generation
of carcinogenic acridine products known to form when advanced oxidation
methods are used in water treatment. Other recalcitrant personal care
products were subjected to prediction by the Pathway Prediction System
and tested experimentally with <i>P</i>. <i>xenovorans</i> LB400. It was shown to biodegrade structurally diverse compounds.
Predictions indicated hydrolase or oxygenase enzymes catalyzed the
initial reactions. This study highlights the potential for using the
growing body of enzyme–structural and genomic information with
computational methods to rapidly identify enzymes and microorganisms
that biodegrade emerging contaminants