MICROBIAL DEGRADATION OF NICOTINE I. Achromobacter nicotinophagumn. sp.: Morphology and Physiology of

Abstract

The destruction of nicotine by microorganisms has been investigated since Batham (1927) ob-served an increase in the nitrate content of soil to which nicotine had been added. He assumed that this increase was due to the conversion of the alkaloid to nitrate by soil bacteria. Faitelo-witz (1927) showed that the nicotine content of nonsterile tobacco extracts decreased on standing, and Weber (1935) obtained a similar effect in bacteriological media free of tobacco and tobacco extracts. The quantitative destruction of nicotine in a synthetic medium by individual species of bacteria was studied by Bucherer and Enders (1942). They isolated three organisms in pure culture and named them Bacterium nicotino-phagum, Bacterium nicotinovorum, and Bacterium nicotinobacter. Wada and Yamasaki (1953) reported destruction of nicotine by a microbe said to be a Pseudomonad. Further characteriza-tion of this organism and a number of others was performed by Tabuchi (1954), who classified them in the genera Pseudomonas, Xanthomonas, Achromobacter, Bacillus, and Bacterium. Abdel-Ghaffar (1953) isolated several strains of nico-tinophiles belonging to the Corynebacteriaceae from cigar tobacco. Sguros (1955) also obtained a number of isolates which he placed in the genus Arthrobacter (Conn and Dimmick, 1947). This paper describes several organisms which have been isolated in pure culture from tobacco seeds and from soil in which tobacco had grown. Three of these organisms resemble those pre-viously described in the literature, but two others are sufficiently different to warrant a detailed description