Isolation of a Petroleum Degrading/Producing Bacterium

　

Masaaki MORIKAWA^*a, Sha JINa, Kei AMADA^a, Mitsuru HARUKI^a, Shigenori KANAYA^a, and Tadayuki IMANAKA^b

　

^a Department of Material & Life Science, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565, Japan

^b Department of Synthetic Chemistry & Biological Chemistry, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606- 01, Japan

　

A facultative anaerobic bacterium strain HD-1 was isolated from an oil-spill. Tetradecane was anaerobically degraded by the strain and one of the metabolic intermediates has been identified as 1-dodecene. This result demonstrates that alkanes can be degraded in the absence of a molecular oxygen via a pathway different from β-oxidation. Strain HD-1 was found to grow on CO₂ in the presence of tetradecane and absence of H₂. This fact shows that the bacterium is able to utilize alkane anaerobically as an energy source (1).

When the strain was grown chemoautotrophically with CO₂ and H₂, many granules accumulated inside the cell. GC/MS analysis'data indicated that the strain HD-1 fixed CO₂ and produced alkanes/alkenes with medium chain size besides popular fatty acids or poly (13-hydroxyalkanoates). Fatty acid and fatty aldehyde have been shown to be precursors of hydrocarbon synthesis in the HD-1 cell (2). Phylogenetic tree analysis based on the 16S rRNA sequence indicated that the strain HD-1 belonged to a new genus.

　

1. Morikawa, M., Kanemoto, M., and Imanaka, T. (1996)J. Ferment. Bioeng., 82, 309-311.

2. Morikawa, M., Iwasa, T., Yanagida, S., and Imanaka, T. J. Ferment. Bioeng., in press.

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