Abstract
The concerted action of commercial esterases, proteases and amidases has been demonstrated to be relevant in polyurethane (PU) degradation by in vitro experiments. However, the spatial and temporal dynamics of these activities during PU biodegradation by PU-degrading bacteria have not been addressed. Here, we examined the capability of Alicycliphilus denitrificans BQ1 to biodegrade the polyester (PS)-PU Impranil, analyzed the temporal and spatial coordination between the extracellular and cytoplasmic esterase and urethane-cleaving activities, and their independent and combined effects on Impranil biodegradation. A. denitrificans BQ1 grew in Impranil, and its clearing was correlated with the cleavage of ester and urethane groups since early times, with decrements of some Impranil compounds and the appearance of biodegradation products. While extracellular esterase was active at early times with its maximum at 18 h, urethanase appeared at this time and increased up to the end of the analysis (48 h), with the cytoplasmic activities behaving similarly but with lower levels than the extracellular ones. Both enzymatic activities exhibited distinct substrate specificity depending on their cellular localization and cultivation times, suggesting they cleave differentially located groups. As the urethane cleavage occurred since early times, when no urethane-cleaving activity was detected, different proteins should be acting at early and late times. In vitro experiments with independent or combined cellular protein fractions supported the previous deduction and confirmed the concerted action of extracellular and cytoplasmic esterase and urethane-cleaving activities. A two-stage process for Impranil degradation by A. denitrificans BQ1 is proposed.
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Acknowledgements
J-FJ acknowledges Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) for her scholarship for Ph.D. studies at Posgrado en Ciencias Bioquímicas, UNAM and DGAPA-PAPIIT, UNAM (IN223317) for a partial scholarship at the end of her studies. We thank Unidad de Servicios de Apoyo a la Investigación y a la Industria (USAII), Facultad de Química, UNAM for the technical support provided by Ch. Marisela Gutiérrez Franco in the FTIR experiments, and Dr. Ayixon Sánchez Reyes from Instituto de Biotecnología, UNAM for his advice with the bioinformatic analysis.
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This work was funded by Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigación e Innovación Tecnológica, Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México grants IN223317 and IN227620, Programa de Apoyo a la Investigación y el Posgrado, Facultad de Química, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Grant 5000-9117, and Programa Presupuestario F003 "Programas Nacionales Estratégicos de Ciencia, Tecnología y Vinculación con los sectores Social, Público y Privado", Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, grant 101737.
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JF-J and HL-T conceived and designed the research. JF-J and MV-S conducted experiments. MJC-G discussed GC–MS results and proposed PU theoretical formula. All authors analyzed data. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Fuentes-Jaime, J., Vargas-Suárez, M., Cruz-Gómez, M.J. et al. Concerted action of extracellular and cytoplasmic esterase and urethane-cleaving activities during Impranil biodegradation by Alicycliphilus denitrificans BQ1. Biodegradation 33, 389–406 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-022-09989-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-022-09989-8