Enzymes environmental significance

Coulter C, JTG Hamilton, WC McRoberts, L Kulakov, MJ Larkin, DB Harper (1999) Halomethane bisulfite/halide ion methyltransferase, an unusual corrinoid enzyme of environmental significance isolated from an aerobic methylotroph using chloromethane as the sole carbon source. Appl Environ Microbiol 65 4301-4312. 

The most fundamental process dealing with the activation of C02 involves the hydration of C02 to produce bicarbonate and the reverse dehydration of bicarbonate to produce C02. These processes are of biological and environmental significance since they control the transport and equilibrium behavior of C02. The spontaneous hydration of C02 and dehydration of HCO3 are processes that are too slow and must therefore be catalyzed by metal complexes in order to expedite the overall conversion rate. In biological systems, a series of enzymes, the carbonic anhydrases, are the efficient catalysts and can accelerate the reactions by up to 7 orders of magnitude. The mechanism of this... 

Coulter C, Hamilton JTG, McRoberts WC, Kulakov L, Larkin MJ, Harper DB (1999) Halomethane Bisulfide/Halide Ion Methyltransferase, an Unusual Corrinoid Enzyme of Environmental Significance Isolated from an Aerobic Methyltroph Using Chloromethane as the Sole Carbon Source. Appl Environ Microbiol 65 4301... 

Xenobiotic compounds are usually attacked by enzymes whose primary function is to react with other compounds, a process that provides neither carbon nor energy called cometabolism. Cometabolism usually involves relatively small modifications of the substance that is cometabolized (the secondary substrate), compared to the primary substrate. The enzymes that carry out cometabolism tend to be relatively nonspecific. As an environmentally significant example of cometabolism, at least one strain of bacteria degrades trichloroethylene with an enzyme system that acts predominantly on phenol. The enzyme activity can be induced by exposure to phenol, after which it acts on trichloroethylene. 

Birth and weaning each represent a very drastic environmental change in the life of a mammal and these two events would be expected to be associated with numerous alterations in enzyme patterns. Significantly, the enzymatic events at birth occur in two clusters. 

In this review we shall not deal with the synthesis of this coordination complex, but we shall deal with the chemical properties of B 12-coenzymes with special emphasis on how these properties relate to Bi2-enzyme mechanisms. Also, we shall show how B -catalyzed methyl-transfer reactions have special significance in the biosynthesis of methylated heavy metals in the aqueous environment, and how the synthesis of these organometallic compounds has special relevance to problems concerned with continuing global environmental health hazards. 

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