Dehalogenation in environmental biotechnology

The ever-expanding limits of enzyme catalysis and biodegradation: polyaromatic, polychlorinated, polyfluorinated, and polymeric compounds

Biodegradation is simply the metabolism of anthropogenic, or otherwise unwanted, chemicals in our environment, typically by microorganisms. The metabolism of compounds commonly found in living things is limited to several thousand metabolites whereas ∼100 million chemical substances have been devised by chemical synthesis, and ∼100 000 are used commercially. Since most of those compounds are not natively found in living things, and some are toxic or carcinogenic, the question arises as to whether there is some organism somewhere with the enzymes that can biodegrade them. Repeatedly, anthropogenic chemicals have been denoted 'non-biodegradable,' only to find they are reactive with one or more enzyme(s). Enzyme reactivity has been organized into categories of functional group transformations. The discovery of new functional group transformations has continually expanded our knowledge of enzymes and biodegradation. This expansion of new-chemical biodegradation is driven by the evolution and spread of newly evolved enzymes. This review describes the biodegradation of widespread commercial chemicals with a focus on four classes: polyaromatic, polychlorinated, polyfluorinated, and polymeric compounds. Polyaromatic hydrocarbons include some of the most carcinogenic compounds known. Polychlorinated compounds include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and many pesticides of the twentieth century. Polyfluorinated compounds are a major focus of bioremediation efforts today. Polymers are clogging landfills, killing aquatic species in the oceans and increasingly found in our bodies. All of these classes of compounds, each thought at one time to be non-biodegradable, have been shown to react with natural enzymes. The known limits of enzyme catalysis, and hence biodegradation, are continuing to expand.

Highly ordered mesoporous TiO2-Fe2O3 mixed oxide synthesized by sol-gel pathway: an efficient and reusable heterogeneous catalyst for dehalogenation reaction

Highly ordered two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal TiO(2)-Fe(2)O(3) mixed-oxide material MFT-1, which is composed of very tiny nanoparticles, is synthesized using sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) as a structure-directing agent. Interestingly, synthesis of an ordered mesophase was not possible using SDS as a template for mesoporous pure Fe(2)O(3) or TiO(2) phases. This mesoporous iron-titanium mixed-oxide material has been characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), N(2) sorption, ultraviolet-visible light diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-vis DRS) studies. N(2) sorption analysis revealed high surface areas (126-385 m(2) g(-1)) and narrow pore size distributions (3.1-3.4 nm) for different samples. UV-vis DRS spectra and wide-angle powder XRD patterns indicate that the material is composed of α-Fe(2)O(3) and anatase TiO(2) phases. This TiO(2)-Fe(2)O(3) mixed-oxide material can act as a very efficient and reusable catalyst in the dehalogenation of aromatic chloride-, bromide-, and iodide-tolerating -F, -CN, -CH(3), -OCH(3) and -NO(2) functional groups in the aromatic ring using 2-propanol as the dispersion medium.

Toward protein engineering for phytoremediation: possibilities and challenges

The combination of rational protein engineering and directed evolution techniques allow for the redesign of enzymes with tailored properties for use in environmental remediation. This review summarizes current molecular methods for either altering or improving protein function and highlights examples of how these methods can address bioremediation problems. Although much of the protein engineering applied to environmental clean-up employs microbial systems, there is great potential for and significant challenges to translating these approaches to plant systems for phytoremediation purposes. Protein engineering technologies combined with genomic information and metabolic engineering strategies hold promise for the design of plants and microbes to remediate organic and inorganic pollutants.

Contaminated environments in the subsurface and bioremediation: organic contaminants

Due to leakages, spills, improper disposal and accidents during transport, organic compounds have become subsurface contaminants that threaten important drinking water resources. One strategy to remediate such polluted subsurface environments is to make use of the degradative capacity of bacteria. It is often sufficient to supply the subsurface with nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and aerobic treatments are still dominating. However, anaerobic processes have advantages such as low biomass production and good electron acceptor availability, and they are sometimes the only possible solution. This review will focus on three important groups of environmental organic contaminants: hydrocarbons, chlorinated and nitroaromatic compounds. Whereas hydrocarbons are oxidized and completely mineralized under anaerobic conditions in the presence of electron acceptors such as nitrate, iron, sulfate and carbon dioxide, chlorinated and nitroaromatic compounds are reductively transformed. For the aerobic often persistent polychlorinated compounds, reductive dechlorination leads to harmless products or to compounds that are aerobically degradable. The nitroaromatic compounds are first reductively transformed to the corresponding amines and can subsequently be bound to the humic fraction in an aerobic process. Such new findings and developments give hope that in the near future contaminated aquifers can efficiently be remediated, a prerequisite for a sustainable use of the precious-subsurface drinking water resources.