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Journal of Bacteriology, August 2001, p. 4536-4542, Vol. 183, No. 15
Environmental Engineering and Science,
Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering,1 and Department of
Biological Sciences,2 Stanford University,
Stanford, California 94305-4020
Received 2 February 2001/Accepted 27 April 2001
The first step in anaerobic ethylbenzene mineralization in
denitrifying Azoarcus sp. strain EB1 is the oxidation of
ethylbenzene to (S)-(
0021-9193/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.183.15.4536-4542.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Isolation and Characterization of Anaerobic
Ethylbenzene Dehydrogenase, a Novel Mo-Fe-S Enzyme
)-1-phenylethanol. Ethylbenzene
dehydrogenase, which catalyzes this reaction, is a unique enzyme in
that it mediates the stereoselective hydroxylation of an aromatic
hydrocarbon in the absence of molecular oxygen. We purified
ethylbenzene dehydrogenase to apparent homogeneity and showed that the
enzyme is a heterotrimer (

) with subunit masses of 100 kDa
(
), 35 kDa (
), and 25 kDa (
). Purified ethylbenzene
dehydrogenase contains approximately 0.5 mol of molybdenum, 16 mol of
iron, and 15 mol of acid-labile sulfur per mol of holoenzyme, as well
as a molydopterin cofactor. In addition to ethylbenzene, purified
ethylbenzene dehydrogenase was found to oxidize 4-fluoro-ethylbenzene
and the nonaromatic hydrocarbons 3-methyl-2-pentene and
ethylidenecyclohexane. Sequencing of the encoding genes revealed that
ebdA encodes the
subunit, a 974-amino-acid polypeptide
containing a molybdopterin-binding domain. The ebdB gene
encodes the
subunit, a 352-amino-acid polypeptide with several
4Fe-4S binding domains. The ebdC gene encodes the
subunit, a 214-amino-acid polypeptide that is a potential membrane
anchor subunit. Sequence analysis and biochemical data suggest that
ethylbenzene dehydrogenase is a novel member of the dimethyl sulfoxide
reductase family of molybdopterin-containing enzymes.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Environmental
Engineering and Science, Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4020. Phone: (650)
723-3668. Fax: (650) 725-3164. E-mail:
spormann{at}stanford.edu.
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