Sewage-loving bug helps clean up environment
Agence France Presse

PARIS, JUNE 27: A bug found in sewage water has pointed the way to cleaning up tetrachloroethylene (PCE), a dangerous industrial compound that has become an environmental headache, the journal, Nature Biotechnology reports in July's issue.

PCE, a suspected cause of cancer, is a colourless liquid solvent, widely used in dry cleaning and metal degreasing, and also found in glues, polishes, pesticides and printing. It does not dissolve in water, nor does it degrade when in contact with the air, meaning that the substance has to be expensively destroyed, either by chemicals or incineration to stop it polluting the environment.

However, an innovative way of cleaning up the hazard has been found by an international team of scientists from the University of Connecticut, South Korea's Jeonju University and the University of Milan.

They isolated a bacterium, Pseudomonas stutzeri OX1, from the sludge of a sewage plant, and found it exuded an enzyme that degrades PCE in the presence of oxygen, converting the chemical into harmless chloride ions. The enzyme, called Toluene-O-Xylene Monooxygenase (ToMo), has great potential for cleaning up other sites contaminated by chlorinated waste, they say.

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