Development of a Biocontained Toluene-Degrading Bacterium for Environmental Protection
Masahito Ishikawa, Takaaki Kojima, Katsutoshi Hori
Abstract
GEMs are beneficial for various applications, including environmental protection. However, the risks of GEM release into the environment have been debated for a long time. If a pollutant is employed as a specific molecule for a biocontainment system, GEMs capable of degrading pollutants are available for environmental protection. Nevertheless, to our knowledge, biocontained degraders for real pollutants have not been reported in academic journals so far. This is possibly due to the difficulty in the expression of enzymes for degrading pollutants in a tractable bacterium such as Escherichia coli. On the other hand, bacteria with enzymes for degrading pollutants are often intractable as a host of GEMs due to the shortage of tools for genetic manipulation. This study reports the feasibility of a biocontainment strategy for a toluene degrader. Our results provide useful insights into the construction of a GEM biocontainment system for environmental protection.