Multiple pathways for toluene degradation in Burkholderia sp. strain JS150.

Burkholderia (Pseudomonas) sp. strain JS150 uses multiple pathways for the metabolism of catechols that result from degradation of aromatic compounds. This suggests that the strain also uses multiple upstream pathways for the initial hydroxylation of aromatic substrates. Two distinct DNA fragments that allowed Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1c to grow with benzene as a sole carbon source were cloned from strain JS150. One of the recombinant plasmids containing the initial steps for the degradative pathway contained a 14-kb DNA insert and was designated pRO2016. We have previously shown that the DNA insert originated from a plasmid carried by strain JS150 and contained genes encoding a multicomponent toluene-2-monooxygenase (tbmABCDEF) as well as the cognate regulatory protein (tbmR) that controls expression of the 2-monooxygenase (G. R. Johnson and R. H. Olsen, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 61:3336-3346, 1995). Subsequently, we have identified an additional region on this DNA fragment that encodes toluene-4-monooxygenase activity. The toluene-4-monooxygenase activity was also regulated by the tbmR gene product. A second DNA fragment that allowed P. aeruginosa to grow with benzene was obtained as a 20-kb insert on a recombinant plasmid designated pRO2015. The DNA insert contained genes encoding toluene-4-monooxygenase activity but no toluene-2-monooxygenase activity. The pRO2015 insert originated from the chromosome of strain JS150, unlike the region cloned in pRO2016. Southern blots and restriction map comparisons showed that the genes for the individual 4-monooxygenases were distinct from one another. Thus, strain JS150 has been shown to have at least three toluene/benzene monooxygenases to initiate toluene metabolism in addition to the toluene dioxygenase reported previously by others.