Engineering dioxygenases for efficient degradation of environmental pollutants

Dioxygenases have recently been engineered to improve their capabilities fo r environmental pollutant degradation. The techniques used to achieve this include in vitro DNA shuffling and subunit or domain exchanges between diox ygenases of different bacterial origins. Such evolved enzymes acquire novel and enhanced degradation capabilities of xenobiotic compounds, such as pol ychlorinated biphenyls, trichloroethylene and a variety of aromatic compoun ds. Hybrid strains in which the evolved genes are integrated into the chrom osomal operons exhibit efficient degradation of xenobiotic chlorinated comp ounds.