Formaldehyde metabolism by Escherichia coli. In vivo carbon, deuterium, and two-dimensional NMR observations of multiple detoxifying pathways.

13C NMR has been used to demonstrate the metabolism of dilute solutions of labeled formaldehyde by Escherichia coli to methanol, formate, carbon dioxide, and several other unidentified metabolites which contain labeled CH2 groups. Aeration of bacterial suspensions within the spectrometer dramatically increased the rate of oxidation to formate and carbon dioxide. Deoxygenation with nitrogen gas virtually abolished all metabolism, as did the exposure of bacteria to very high formaldehyde concentrations. Deuterium NMR of whole cells in deuterium-depleted water further demonstrated the conversion of formaldehyde-d2 to methanol-d2, ruling out a formaldehyde dismutase as an important species. Two-dimensional proton-carbon chemical shift correlation was used to reveal the chemical shifts of the protons attached to 13C labels in metabolites. The results indicate that formaldehyde is efficiently detoxified by the bacterial cell through a route or routes which do not appear to involve tetrahydrofolate. This detoxification may be in competition with the lethal antibacterial processes associated with formaldehyde.