Journal of Microbiology

Monitoring Expression of bphC Gene from Ralstonia eutropha H850 Induced by Plant Terpenes in Soil: Kyung-Ja Jung , Byung-Hyuk Kim , Eungbin Kim , Jae-Seong So , Sung-Cheol Koh; J. Microbiol. 2002;40(4):340-343.

Abstract: A PCB degrader, Ralstonia eutropha H850 was shown to induce bphC gene encoding 2,3-dihydroxy-biphenyl-1,2-dioxygenase in a carvone-amended pure culture in our previous study (Park et al., 1999). The present study was carried out to examine how plant terpenes, as natural substrates, would cause an expression of a PCB degradative gene in soil that was amended with terpenes. The population of Ralstonia eutropha H850 was maintained at least around 10 8 (CFU/g fresh soil) in the soil amended with carvone or limonene in the presence of succinate as a growth substrate at 50 th day. The gene expression was monitored by RT-PCR using total RNA directly extracted from each soil and bphC gene primers. The bphC gene expression of the seeded strain H850 was observed in the soil amended with biphenyl (4 days) but not with succinate, carvone and limonene. These results indicate that terpenes widely distributed in nature could be a potential inducing substrate for effective PCB biodegration in the soil but their bioavailability and specific induction behavior should be taken into account before PCB bioremediation implementation.

Plant Terpene-Induced Expression of Multiple Aromatic Ring Hydroxylation Oxygenase Genes in Rhodococcus sp. Strain T104: Byung-Hyuk Kim , Eun-Taex Oh , Jae-Seong So , Yeonghee Ahn , Sung-Cheol Koh; J. Microbiol. 2003;41(4):349-352.

Abstract: Recent studies have shown that some of the PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl)-degraders are able to effectively degrade PCB in the presence of monoterpenes, which act as inducers for the degradation pathway. Rhodococcus sp. T104, an effective PCB degrader, has been shown to induce the degradation pathway by utilizing limonenes, cymenes, carvones, and pinenes as sole carbon sources which can be found in the natural environment. Moreover, the strain T104 proved to possess three separate oxidation pathways of limonene, biphenyl, and phenol. Of these three, the limonene can also induce the biphenyl degradation pathway. In this work, we report the presence of three distinct genes for aromatic oxygenase, which are putatively involved in the degradation of aromatic substrates including biphenyl, limonene, and phenol, through PCR amplification and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). The genes were differentially expressed and well induced by limonene, cymene, and plant extract A compared to biphenyl and/or glucose. This indicates that substrate specificity must be taken into account when biodegradation of the target compounds are facilitated by the plant natural substrates.

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