90th Professorial Inaugural Lecture Series by Professor Dr. Fahrul Zaman Huyop
Pollutant Degradation : Potential & Challenges
Organic pollutants are mostly anthropogenic and microbial degradation plays an important role to reduce the build-up of toxic chemicals in the soil and water systems. Degradation of halogenated organic compounds are highlighted because carbon-halogen bonds are the most recalcitrant materials. There are four important criteria for a given halogenated compound to be utilized by an organism as a sole carbon and energy source. First, the halogenated compound should not be toxic to the organism at intracellular concentrations. Secondly, entry of halogenated compound into the organism should be either through passive or active transport and trigger a specialized genes in the operon. Thirdly, the organism should be able to synthesize enzyme (dehalogenase) which can remove the substituent halogen(s) from the compound and finally, the product of dehalogenation should be non-toxic and easily converted to an intermediate which can readily be absorbed in the microorganisms via central metabolic pathways. There were many dehalogenase producing bacteria were isolated so far. Among all these microbes, only Rhizobium sp. RC1 produce three kinds of dehalogenase DehD, DehE and DehL. Current study will focus on all of these 4 challenges criteria that has big potential to allow biodegradation to occur.
