Alkylamines and Amino Acids

The initial reaction in the biodegradation of primary alkylamines is conversion into the aldehyde and subsequent reactions converge on those for the degradation of primary alkanes. There are a number of important details in this apparently straightforward reaction  

An inducible primary amine dehydrogenase in a strain of Mycobacterium convolutum had diverse degradative capability with a broad specificity, and was involved in the degradation of 1- and 2-aminopropane and 1,3-diaminopropane. The products were assimilated by the methylmalonate pathway, or by formation of C2 + Cj fragments (Cerniglia and Perry 1975). 

Species of Pseudomonas can utilize the a,(i)-diamines putrescine, spermidine, and spermine as sources of carbon and nitrogen, and putrescine can be produced from the secondary amine spermidine together with 1,3-diaminopropane (Dasu et al. 2006). Putrescine (1,4-diaminobutane) is an intermediate in the arginine decarboxylase (ADC) pathway of L-arginine degradation, which is described later, and can be degraded, by two pathways  

Considerable effort has been directed to the degradation of complexing agents. The degradation of nitrilotriacetate (NTA), ethylenediamine tetraacetate (EDTA), and related compounds display some important featnres  

A number of factors complicate the aerobic metabolism of amino acids—different enzymes may be used even for the same amino acid the enzymes may be inducible or constitutive depending on their function a-ketoacids may be produced by deamination or amines by decarboxylation. 

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