Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze the ability of swainsonine (SW) biodegradation by five types of transformants from the genomic library of Arthrobacter sp. HW08, explore preliminarily metabolites and deduce the metabolic pathway. Using 1000 mg·L^-1 SW as the sole carbon source, mineral salts medium (MSM) containing five transformants at a proportion for 1:1(V:V) was incubated at 30°C, 180 r·min^-1. The degradation rate of SW was 99.78% in 48 h, and SW could be completely degraded in 72 h. Compared with samples containing SW in 0 h, two special spots of metabolites were visualized with iodine vapor by thin-layer chromatography (TLC). Two kinds of primary metabolites (stearic acid and palmitinic acid) and two kinds of intermediate metabolites appeared in the process of metabolism of SW by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) whose m/z was 388.2 and 314.3 amu respectively. Ultimately, four kinds of end-products appeared in the process of metabolism of SW. This work demonstrates the preliminary results on metabolites of degrading SW by five transformants from Arthrobacter sp. HW08. This work also provides further information on metabolic pathway of SW from strain HW08.

Key words: Swainsonine, biodegradation, metabolites, transformants, Arthrobacter sp. HW08.