The biodegradation of organic substances is a natural yet poorly understood process. Given that biodegradation assessments form an integral part of chemical regulations to assess the persistent of substances this lack of knowledge needs to be addressed. Official references define the biodegradation process as "The biologically mediated degradation or transformation of chemicals usually carried ...

We have previously reported on a software system called Bess which simulates the action of biodegradation pathways on compounds. It does so by encoding biodegradation pathways in a knowledge base and applying those pathways in sequence to the compound, breaking it down into metabolites. We describe Bess, its knowledge-base and the system that uses it, and some preliminary validation results. We...

With urbanization of coastal cities, marine pollution is becoming a severe problem. The rates of biodegradation, decomposition, and ratification of pollutants get slowed down due to salinity. The higher temperatures prevalent in tropical regions significantly affect reaction rates. Multiple factors influence the rate of biodegradation, making the process complex. Hence, prediction and evaluatio...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a good environmental microorganism capable of degrading decabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-209). This paper studied the effect of Cu2+ and humic acid (HA) extracted from e-waste contaminated soils on biodegradation of BDE-209 by P. aeruginosa. The adsorption isotherms of Cu2+ on HA, the crude enzyme activity, cell surface morphology, and biodegradation pathway were also inve...

Alkyl polyglucosides, due to their low toxicity and environmental compatibility, could be used in biodegradation of hydrophobic compounds. In this study, the influence of Lutensol GD 70 on the cell hydrophobicity and zeta potential was measured. The particle size distribution and surfactant biodegradation were also investigated. Microbacterium sp. strain E19, Pseudomonas stutzeri strain 9, and ...

The ecology of hydrocarbon degradation by microbial populations in the natural environment is reviewed, emphasizing the physical, chemical, and biological factors that contribute to the biodegradation of petroleum and individual hydrocarbons. Rates of biodegradation depend greatly on the composition, state, and concentration of the oil or hydrocarbons, with dispersion and emulsification enhanci...

Most biodegradable plastics are waterinsoluble solid materials under normal environmental conditions (Bohlmann, 2005). The biodegradation of plastics is a surface erosion process which happens at the solid/liquid interface, where extracellular enzymes, in the liquid phase, start depolymerisation of the solid phase (Tosin et al., 1996). The depolymerisation releases monomers that are assimilated...

A hypothesis was developed, and successfully tested, to greatly increase the rates of biodegradation of polyolefins, by anchoring minute quantities of glucose, sucrose or lactose, onto functionalized polystyrene (polystyrene-co-maleic anhydride copolymer) and measuring their rates of biodegradation, which were found to be significantly improved.

Enzymes expressed in response to vinyl chloride, ethene, and epoxyethane by Nocardioides sp. strain JS614 were identified by using a peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF) approach. PMF provided insight concerning vinyl chloride biodegradation in strain JS614 and extends the use of matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionization time of flight mass spectrometry as a tool to enhance characterization of b...