Oxidation of aliphatic, branched chain, and aromatic hydrocarbons by Nocardia cyriacigeorgica isolated from oil-polluted sand samples collected in the Saudi Arabian Desert
✍ Scribed by Le Thi Nhi-Cong; Annett Mikolasch; Susanne Awe; Halah Sheikhany; Hans-Peter Klenk; Frieder Schauer
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2010
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 351 KB
- Volume
- 50
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0233-111X
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✦ Synopsis
Abstract
A soil bacterium isolated from oil‐polluted sand samples collected in the Saudi Arabian Desert has been determined as Nocardia cyriacigeorgica, which has a high capacity of degrading and utilizing a broad range of hydrocarbons. The metabolic pathways of three classes of hydrocarbons were elucidated by identifying metabolites in cell‐free extracts analyzed by GC/MS and HPLC/UV‐Vis in comparison with standard compounds. During tetradecane oxidation, tetradecanol; tetradecanoic acid; dodecanoic acid; decanoic acid could be found as metabolites, indicating a monoterminal degradation pathway of n ‐alkanes. The oxidation of pristane resulted in the presence of pristanoic acid; 2‐methylglutaric acid; 4,8‐dimethylnonanoic acid; and 2,6‐dimethylheptanoic acid, which give rise to a possible mono‐ and di‐terminal oxidation. In case of sec ‐octylbenzene, eight metabolites were detected including 5‐phenylhexanoic acid; 3‐phenylbutyric acid; 2‐phenylpropionic acid; β ‐methylcinnamic acid; acetophenone; β ‐hydroxy acetophenone; 2,3‐dihydroxy benzoic acid and succinic acid. From these intermediates a new degradation pathway for sec ‐octylbenzene was investigated. Our results indicate that N. cyriacigeorgica has the ability to degrade aliphatic and branched chain alkanes as well as alkylbenzene effectively and, therefore, N. cyriacigeorgica is probably a suitable bacterium for biodegradation of oil or petroleum products in contaminated soils. (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)