THE LOWER PATHWAY OPERON FOR BENZOATE CATABOLISM IN BIPHENYL-UTILIZING PSEUDOMONAS SP STRAIN-IC AND THE NUCLEOTIDE-SEQUENCE OF THE BPHE GENE FOR CATECHOL 2,3-DIOXYGENASE
B. Carrington et al., THE LOWER PATHWAY OPERON FOR BENZOATE CATABOLISM IN BIPHENYL-UTILIZING PSEUDOMONAS SP STRAIN-IC AND THE NUCLEOTIDE-SEQUENCE OF THE BPHE GENE FOR CATECHOL 2,3-DIOXYGENASE, Microbiology, 140, 1994, pp. 499-508
Pseudomonas sp. strain IC is able to grow on biphenyl, 3-methylbipheny
l and 4-methylbiphenyl. These are converted to benzoate and the corres
ponding methylbenzoates. The lower pathway genes for the catabolism of
the benzoates were cloned on a 22 kb HindIII fragment. Hybridization
with gene-specific probes from the meta pathways of other catabolic pl
asmids showed that the gene order was identical to that of the operons
carrying the same function from TOL plasmids. The nucleotide sequence
of a 1241 bp region carrying the whole of the bphE gene (for a catech
ol 2,3-dioxygenase) and the 5' end of the downstream bphG gene (for 2-
hydroxy semialdehyde dehydrogenase) was determined. Both genes showed
a high degree of homology with genes encoding isofunctional proteins f
rom other Pseudomonas strains. The upper pathway genes for the convers
ion of biphenyl to benzoate have also been cloned but no linkage with
the lower pathway operon has been detected. Pseudomonas strain IC cont
ains a large plasmid pWW110 (> 200 kb) and there are indications that
this plasmid carries the bph genes.