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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, September 2002, p. 4416-4424, Vol. 68, No. 9
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.9.4416-4424.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Cloning and Characterization of the Ferulic Acid Catabolic Genes of Sphingomonas paucimobilis SYK-6

Eiji Masai,1* Kyo Harada,1 Xue Peng,1 Hirotaka Kitayama,1 Yoshihiro Katayama,2 and Masao Fukuda1

Department of Bioengineering, Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Niigata 940-2188,1 Graduate School of Bio-Applications and Systems Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8588, Japan2

Received 18 March 2002/ Accepted 11 June 2002

Sphingomonas paucimobilis SYK-6 degrades ferulic acid to vanillin, and it is further metabolized through the protocatechuate 4,5-cleavage pathway. We obtained a Tn5 mutant of SYK-6, FA2, which was able to grow on vanillic acid but not on ferulic acid. A cosmid which complemented the growth deficiency of FA2 on ferulic acid was isolated. The 5.2-kb BamHI-EcoRI fragment in this cosmid conferred the transformation activity of ferulic acid to vanillin on Escherichia coli host cells. A sequencing analysis revealed the genes ferB and ferA in this fragment; these genes consist of 852- and 2,127-bp open reading frames, respectively. The deduced amino acid sequence of ferB showed 40 to 48% identity with that of the feruloyl-coenzyme A (CoA) hydratase/lyase genes of Pseudomonas and Amycolatopsis ferulic acid degraders. On the other hand, the deduced amino acid sequence of ferA showed no significant similarity to the feruloyl-CoA synthetase genes of other ferulic acid degraders. However, the deduced amino acid sequence of ferA did show 31% identity with pimeloyl-CoA synthetase of Pseudomonas mendocina 35, which has been classified as a new superfamily of acyl-CoA synthetase (ADP forming) with succinyl-CoA synthetase (L. B. Sánchez, M. Y. Galperin, and M. Müller, J. Biol. Chem. 275:5794-5803, 2000). On the basis of the enzyme activity of E. coli carrying each of these genes, ferA and ferB were shown to encode a feruloyl-CoA synthetase and feruloyl-CoA hydratase/lyase, respectively. p-coumaric acid, caffeic acid, and sinapinic acid were converted to their corresponding benzaldehyde derivatives by the cell extract containing FerA and FerB, thereby indicating their broad substrate specificities. We found a ferB homolog, ferB2, upstream of a 5-carboxyvanillic acid decarboxylase gene (ligW) involved in the degradation of 5,5'-dehydrodivanillic acid. The deduced amino acid sequence of ferB2 showed 49% identity with ferB, and its gene product showed feruloyl-CoA hydratase/lyase activity with a substrate specificity similar to that of FerB. Insertional inactivation of each fer gene in S. paucimobilis SYK-6 suggested that the ferA gene is essential and that ferB and ferB2 genes are involved in ferulic acid degradation.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Bioengineering, Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Niigata 940-2188, Japan. Phone: 81-258-47-9428. Fax: 81-258-47-9450. E-mail: emasai{at}vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, September 2002, p. 4416-4424, Vol. 68, No. 9
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.9.4416-4424.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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