Abstract
Ethylene glycols and polyethylene glycols inhibited the growth of a photosynthetic bacterium, Rhodopseudomonas acidophila, strain M402 under aerobic-dark and anaerobic-light culture conditions. However, polyethylene glycol dehydrogenating activity was demonstrated with phenazine methosulfate (PMS) as an electron acceptor in parallel with the PMS-linked aromatic alcohol dehydrogenase activity. Addition of ethylene glycols or polyethylene glycols to the culture neither induced aromatic alcohol dehydrogenase, nor accelerated polyethylene glycol dehydrogenating activity. Purified PMS-linked aromatic alcohol dehydrogenase had high affinities toward diethylene glycol and polyethylene glycols. This indicated that the dye-linked aromatic alcohol dehydrogenase is capable of oxidizing these xenobiotic synthetic polymer alcohols, polyethylene glycols. There is no evidence on the existence of a specific polyethylene glycol dehydrogenase in this bacterium.
