Metabolic dechlorination

S. Safe and O. Hutzinger, Polychlorinated Biphenyls Photolysis of 2,4,6,2, 6 Hexachlorobiphenyl, Nature232 (1971) 641-42 O. Hutzinger et al., Polychlorinated Biphenyls Metabolic Behavior of Pure Isomers in Pigeons, Rats, and Brook Trout, Science 178 (1972) 512-14 O. Hutzinger et al., Identification of Metabolic Dechlorination of Highly Chlorinated Biphenyl in Rabbits, Nature 252 (1974) 698-99. 

Three mechanisms have been identified in the metabolic dechlorination of chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbon. Metabolic processes are coupled to energy conservation and, as a result, are interpreted to be beneficial to the dechlorinating microorganisms. These include... 

The refractory nature of some pollutants, notably, persistent polyhalogenated compounds, has raised problems of bioremediation of contaminated sites (e.g., sediments and dumping sites). There has been interest in the identification, or the production by genetic manipulation, of strains of microorganisms that can metabolically degrade recalcitrant molecules. For example, there are bacterial strains that can reductively dechlorinate PCBs under anaerobic conditions. 

Certain anaerobic bacteria can reductively dechlorinate PCBs in sediments (EHC 140). Higher chlorinated PCBs are degraded more rapidly than lower chlorinated ones, which is in contrast to the trend for oxidative metabolism described earlier. Genetically engineered strains of bacteria have been developed to degrade PCBs in bioremediation programs. 

Holliger C, G Wohlfarth, G Diekert (1999) Reductive dechlorination in the energy metabolism of anaerobic bacteria. EEMS Microbiol Rev 22 383-398. 

Wedemeyer G (1967) Dechlorination of l,l,l-trichloro-2,2-bis[p-chlorophenyl]ethane by Aerobacter aero-genes. I. Metabolic products. Appl Microbiol 15 569-574. 

Tetrachoroethylene (perchloroethylene, PCE) is the only chlorinated ethene that resists aerobic biodegradation. This compound can be dechlorinated to less- or nonchlorinated ethenes only under anaerobic conditions. This process, known as reductive dehalogenation, was initially thought to be a co-metabolic activity. Recently, however, it was shown that some bacteria species can use PCE as terminal electron acceptor in their basic metabolism i.e., they couple their growth with the reductive dechlorination of PCE.35 Reductive dehalogenation is a promising method for the remediation of PCE-contaminated sites, provided that the process is well controlled to prevent the buildup of even more toxic intermediates, such as the vinyl chloride, a proven carcinogen. 

Both tetrachloroethene and pentachloroethane undergo subsequent hepatic metabolism. Pentachloroethane is reductively dechlorinated by microsomes to yield trichloroethene. (Reductive dechlorination was favored when there were three chlorines on one carbon and at least one chlorine on the vicinal carbon [Thompson et al. 1984], a characteristic shared by hexachloroethane and pentachloroethane). Trichloroethene and tetrachloroethene were then oxidized by hepatic enzymes to form trichloroethanol and trichloroacetic acid as terminal reaction products. Apparently additional dechlorination reactions can occur since labeled dichloroethanol, dichloroacetic acid, monochloroacetic acid, and oxalic acid have been... 

The metabolism of carbon tetrachloride proceeds via cytochrome P-450-dependent dehalogenation (Sipes et al. 1977). The first step involves cleavage of one carbon-chlorine bond to yield Cl- and a trichloromethyl free radical, which is then oxidized to the unstable intermediate trichloromethanol, the precursor of phosgene. Hydrolytic dechlorination of phosgene yields C02 and HC1 (Shah et al. 1979). Although there are similarities in the metabolism of chloroform and carbon tetrachloride, metabolic activation of chloroform produces primarily phosgene, whereas the level of phosgene production from... 

The nature of the radioactivity in the water, soil and fish from the carbon-14 DDT experiment was examined by thin-layer chromatography as shown in Figure 5. The radioactivity in the water was very polar in nature and did not migrate appreciably from the origin. About 78% of the radioactivity in the soil was extracted with methanol. The major metabolite in the extractable fraction was DDD which represented 33% of the total radioactivity. The reductive dechlorination of DDT to DDD is a known pathway under anaerobic conditions and has been shown to be due to microbial metabolism (5). Since carbon-14 DDT was incor-... 

Dihaloelimination is a two-electron transfer reaction. Thompson et al. [377] reported reductive dichloroelimination of 1,1,2-TCA and TeCA by hepatic micro-somes from rat Ever, with VC and both tDCE and cDCE as metabolites. Reductive dichloroelimination from hexa- and pentachloroethane by microsomal cytochrome P450 was studied by Nastainczyk et al. [378]. The main products of the in vitro metabolism of hexa- and pentachloroethane were PCE (99.5%) and TCE (96%), respectively, with minor amounts of pentachloroethane (0.5%) and TeCA (4%), respectively, via reductive dechlorination. 

TCE is the other major contaminant at the site and is a common groundwater contaminant in aquifers throughout the United States [425]. Since TCE is a suspected carcinogen, the fate and transport of TCE in the environment and its microbial degradation have been extensively studied [25,63, 95,268,426,427]. Reductive dechlorination under anaerobic conditions and aerobic co-metabolic processes are the predominant pathways for TCE transformation. In aerobic co-metabolic processes, oxidation of TCE is catalyzed by the enzymes induced and expressed for the initial oxidation of the growth substrates [25, 63, 268, 426]. Several growth substrates such as methane, propane, butane, phenol, and toluene have been shown to induce oxygenase enzymes which co-metabolize TCE [428]. 

The metabolism of 1,2,3-trichloropropane (11.27), an industrial solvent that undergoes biotransformation via dechlorination at C(l) and C(2) [60], is a clearer case of oxidative dehalogenation. Following incubation with human or rat liver microsomes, the compound was converted to 1,3-dichloroacetone (11.29), which could a priori be produced by oxidative dehalogenation (i. e., via 11.28) or by hydrolytic dehalogenation. In this study, evidence was found... 

The most important example to be discussed here is that of the drug chloramphenicol (11.39, R = 2-hydroxy-l-(hydroxymethyl)-2-(4-nitrophen-yl)ethyl, Fig. 11.7), the many metabolic pathways of which have yielded a wealth of information [75], The dichloroacetyl moiety is especially of interest in that dechlorination proceeds by three proven routes glutathione-dependent dechlorination, cytochrome P450 catalyzed oxidation, and hydrolysis. Of particular value is that the oxidative and hydrolytic routes can be unambiguously distinguished by at least one product, as shown in Fig. 11.7. Oxidation at the geminal H-atom produces an unstable (dichloro)hydroxyacet-amido intermediate that spontaneously eliminates HC1 to yield the oxamoyl... 

In conclusion, the oxamic acid derivative is produced by two distinct metabolic pathways, namely by oxidative and hydrolytic dechlorinations. In contrast, the primary alcohol metabolite 11.41 can be produced only by hydrolytic dechlorination and is, thus, an unambiguous marker of this pathway. The alcohol 11.41 is a known urinary metabolite of chloramphenicol in humans. 

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