IPRODIONE DEGRADATION BY ISOLATED SOIL-MICROORGANISMS

Three bacterial strains were isolated from soils adapted to iprodione and identified as Pseudomonas fluorescens, Pseudomonas sp. and Pseudom onas paucimobilis. The first two strains transformed iprodione to N-(3 ,5-dichlorophenyl)-2,4-dioxoimidazolidine (II) and under restrictive c onditions to 3,5-dichlorophenylurea acetic acid (III); the latter subs equently degraded II to III and III to 3,5-dichloroaniline (3,5-D). We constructed bacterial combinations consisting of Pseudomonas paucimob ilis plus one of the iprodione degraders and showed that these combina tions transformed iprodione into 3,5-D. It is known that 3,5-D was the major metabolite found in adapted soils, suggesting that such a bacte rial combination might be responsible for degrading iprodione into 3,5 -D in adapted soils. Plasmids could only be isolated in Pseudomonas fl uorescens but we did not investigate if one of these was involved in t he ability to degrade iprodione.