English: The s-triazine herbicide atrazine is a widely used that is persistant in the soil. It is prone to ground and surface water contamination. A range of soil bacteria, including both Gram-negative and Gram-positive strains can degrade atrazine, utilizing it as a nitrogen and carbon source. In this aerobic pathway, which has been studied in most detail in the bacterium Pseudomonas sp. ADP, atrazine is catabolized in three enzymatic steps to cyanurate, which can be further metabolized by ring cleavage to carbon dioxide and ammonia. The first enzyme, encoded by either atzA or trzN (EC 3.8.1.8), converts atrazine to hydroxyatrazine. Two additional hydrolases, encoded by the atzB (EC 3.5.99.3) and atzC (EC 3.5.99.4) genes, continue the process by removing the ethylamine and isopropylamine groups. While some organisms possess all of the required enzymes, other communities degrade atrazine by a community-approach, where different organisms have some of the enzymes, and the intermediates in the pathway are passed between the organisms.

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References

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