Abstract
There is an increasing demand for versatile and ubiquitous Cytochrome P450 (CYP) biocatalysts for biotechnology, medicine, and bioremediation. In the last decade there has been an increase in realization of the power of CYP biocatalysts for detoxification of soil and water contaminants using transgenic plants. However, the major limitations of mammalian CYP enzymes are that they require CYP reductase (CPR) for their activity, and they show relatively low activity, stability, and expression. On the other hand, bacterial CYP enzymes show limited substrate diversity and usually do not metabolize herbicides and industrial contaminants. Therefore, there has been a considerable interest for biotechnological industries and the scientific community to design CYP enzymes to improve their catalytic efficiency, stability, expression, substrate diversity, and the suitability of P450-CPR fusion enzymes. Engineered CYP enzymes have potential for transgenic plants-mediated phytoremediation of herbicides and environmental contaminants. In this review we discuss: 1) the role of CYP enzymes in phytoremediation using transgenic plants, 2) problems associated with wild-type CYP enzymes in phytoremediation, and 3) examples of engineered CYP enzymes and their potential role in transgenic plant-mediated phytoremediation.
Highlights
Cytochromes P450 (CYP) enzymes are a super family of ubiquitous heme proteins that are involved in Phase I metabolism and clearance of numerous xenobiotics, such as therapeutic drugs, substances of abuse, herbicides, and industrial contaminants [1]
The use of transgenic plants for phytoremediation is critical because plants do not have the ability to completely catabolize toxic compounds that are common in the food chain, such as herbicides, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and polychlorinated benzene (PCBs) [12,13]
We suggest a potential use of engineered mammalian CYP enzymes in bioremediation that show significantly increased activity, substrate diversity, and expression
Summary
Cytochromes P450 (CYP) enzymes are a super family of ubiquitous heme proteins that are involved in Phase I metabolism and clearance of numerous xenobiotics, such as therapeutic drugs, substances of abuse, herbicides, and industrial contaminants [1]. Since many mammalian CYP enzymes have the capability to metabolize these compounds into relatively safe products, they can be used to create transgenic plants for such purposes. Transgenic plants expressing bacterial CYP genes have been used for enhanced degradation and remediation of herbicides and industrial contaminants [9,10,11].
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