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Strategies for bioremediation of polychlorinated biphenyls

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Abstract

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are serious environmental pollutants that threaten both the natural ecosystem and human health. For remediation of environments contaminated with PCBs, several approaches that exploit the potential of microbes to degrade PCBs have been developed. These approaches include improvement of PCB solubilization and entry into the cell, pathway and enzyme engineering, and control of enzyme expression. In this mini-review, we briefly summarize these strategies and provide potentially useful knowledge for the further improvement of the bacterial breakdown of PCBs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (HC-04-2323-1), Japan. Part of this work was performed in the Eco Molecular Science Research Program of RIKEN. Y.O. was financially supported by research fellowships from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists. Y.O. was also a special postdoctoral researcher at RIKEN.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Life Sciences, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, 2-1-1 Katahira, Sendai, 980-8577, Japan

    Yoshiyuki Ohtsubo, Masataka Tsuda & Yuji Nagata

  2. Environmental Molecular Biology Laboratory, RIKEN, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan

    Toshiaki Kudo

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  1. Yoshiyuki Ohtsubo
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  2. Toshiaki Kudo
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  3. Masataka Tsuda
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  4. Yuji Nagata
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Correspondence to Yoshiyuki Ohtsubo.

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Ohtsubo, Y., Kudo, T., Tsuda, M. et al. Strategies for bioremediation of polychlorinated biphenyls. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 65, 250–258 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-004-1654-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-004-1654-y

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