Degradation of Acetic Acid..

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Cubemeister - 24 Jan 2007 00:20 GMT

Hi, i'm looking for a microrganism or enzyme able to convert Acetic
Acid into simple products like, for example, CO2 and Water, or
something. I dont know if exists.. I've looking but i dont find any. If
someone know about this please help me.. ;)

Thank's and sorry for my english.. ;)

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Bob - 24 Jan 2007 03:21 GMT

>Hi, i'm looking for a microrganism or enzyme able to convert Acetic
>Acid into simple products like, for example, CO2 and Water, or
>something. I dont know if exists.. I've looking but i dont find any.

Many common bacteria, including good ol' Escherichia coli, will grow
on acetate as sole C source. I presume you know that, but don't want
that solution. Could you clarify why?

bob

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Cubemeister - 24 Jan 2007 19:04 GMT

> Many common bacteria, including good ol' Escherichia coli, will grow
> on acetate as sole C source. I presume you know that, but don't want
> that solution. Could you clarify why?
>
> bob

Hi bob, and thanks for your fast reply. The objective of my work is to
remove acetic acid (a by-product) of an alimentary product. Thus, I
need a bacterium, or preferential, one or more enzymes that degrade
acetic acid without the formation of harmful composites such as
methane, for example.
For me an enzyme or a set of enzymes capable to degrade acetic acid to
CO2 and water would be the ideal, a time that, the utilization of
bacterium in alimentary products is complicated. But it?s a start.. ;)

Thanks one more time,
Cubemeister

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Bob - 25 Jan 2007 04:32 GMT

>> Many common bacteria, including good ol' Escherichia coli, will grow
>> on acetate as sole C source. I presume you know that, but don't want
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>CO2 and water would be the ideal, a time that, the utilization of
>bacterium in alimentary products is complicated. But it´s a start.. ;)

Welllllll.... This is going to depend on your precise situation, so I
can only toss out some thoughts. Maybe they will stimulate other
ideas. (I don't know why you consider methane as bad. More
importantly, then, I have no idea what you consider bad. And I'm not
sure how you are using this. Is this in a person's digestive system?
That is a huge constraint.)

Bacteria grow on acetate -- and produce CO2, H2O, and cell mass. That
is normal metabolism.

The bacteria are likely to use other C sources in the material --
perhaps an issue for you. Offhand, I don't know if there are natural
bacteria that grow only on acetate. Existing bacteria could be
engineered to eliminate some competition, if you had a defined list of
things you did not want them to grow on.

As to enzymes... The most common thing to do with acetate is to make
acetyl-CoA. That is an energy- (and cofactor-) requiring reaction. It
can be done in the lab, but would normally be considered expensive or
complex for any large scale system. Free acetate is not common in
biology; acetate is usually in the form of acetyl-CoA, which feeds
into pathways such as the citric acid cycle or fatty acid synthesis --
both of which are complex multi-enzyme systems.

I believe that even methanogens that use acetate start by making
acetyl-CoA.

There may be some enzymes that make acetyl phosphate, probably with
ATP as phosphate donor.

Perhaps there are some enzymes somewhere that do something else with
acetate -- though it is not particularly obvious what one would do.
Enzymes from exotic bacteria might be difficult to deal with -- but
that is for you to consider in the context of your needs. Certainly, a
search on enzymes with acetate as substrate might be worth a try,
though you may run into a signal/noise problem.

bob

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Natural Science Forum / Biology / Microbiology / January 2007

Degradation of Acetic Acid..