RESEARCH ARTICLE


The Catalytic Product of Pentachlorophenol 4-Monooxygenase is Tetra-chlorohydroquinone rather than Tetrachlorobenzoquinone



Yunyou Su, Lifeng Chen, Brian Bandy, Jian Yang*
College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan, 110 Science Place, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 5C9, Canada


Article Metrics

CrossRef Citations:
10
Total Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 3617
Abstract HTML Views: 2655
PDF Downloads: 686
Total Views/Downloads: 6958
Unique Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 1696
Abstract HTML Views: 1539
PDF Downloads: 480
Total Views/Downloads: 3715



Creative Commons License
© Yunyou Su et al.; Licensee Bentham Open

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan, 110 Science Place, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 5C9; Canada; Tel: 1-306-966-6361; Fax: 1-306-966-6377; E-mail: jiy129@mail.usask.ca


Abstract

Pentachlorophenol 4-monooxygenase (PcpB) catalyzes the hydroxylation of pentachlorophenol in the pentachlorophenol biodegradation pathway in Sphingobium chlorophenolicum. Previous studies from two different research groups proposed oppositely that the catalytic product of PcpB was tetrachlorohydroquinone (TCHQ) and tetrachlorobenzoquinone (TCBQ). We re-examined the identity of the catalytic product of PcpB, because TCHQ and TCBQ are present in a redox-equilibrium in aqueous solutions and the chemical reagents NADPH, ethyl acetate and glutathione used for the product detection in the previous studies may shift the redox-equilibrium. In this study, we investigated the effects of NADPH, ethyl acetate and glutathione on the redox-equilibrium and product distribution. Under newly designed experimental conditions, we confirmed unambiguously that the catalytic product of PcpB is TCHQ instead of TCBQ. We also propose that TCBQ may be produced non-specifically by peroxidases within the bacterial cells and that TCBQ reductase (PcpD) might act as a self-protective rather than a PCP-degradation enzyme.