Regulation of Phenol Metabolism in Ralstonia eutropha JMP134

Ralstonia eutrupha JMP134 is a well-known soil bacterium which can metabolite diverse aromatic compounds and xenobiotics, such as phenol, 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2, 4-D), and trichloroethylene (TCE), etc. Phenol is degraded through chromosomally encoded phenol degradation pathway. Phenol is first metabolized into catechol by a multicomponent phenol hydroxylase, which is further metabolized to TCA cycle intermediates via a meta-cleavage pathway. The nucleotide sequences of the genes for the phenol hydroxylase have previously been determined, and found to composed of eight genes phlKLMNOPRX in an operon structure. The phlR, whose gene product is a NtrC-like transcriptional activator, was found to be located at the internal region of the structural genes, which is not the case in most bacteria where the regulatory genes lie near the structural genes. In addition to this regulatory gene, we found other regulatory genes, the phlA and phlR2, downstream of the phlX. These genes were found to be overlapped and hence likely to be co-transcribed. The protein similarity analysis has revealed that the PhlA belongs to the GntR family, which are known to be negative regulators, whereas the PhlR2 shares high homology with the NtrC-type family of transcriptional activators like the PhlR. Disruption of the phlA by insertional mutation has led to the constitutive expression of the activity of phenol hydroxylase in JMP134, indicating that PhlA is a negative regulator. Possible regulatory mechanisms of phenol metabolism in R. eutropha JMP134 has been discussed.