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. 1978 Oct;36(4):539–543. doi: 10.1128/aem.36.4.539-543.1978

Microbial catabolism of vanillate: decarboxylation to guaiacol.

R L Crawford, P P Olson
PMCID: PMC243087  PMID: 101140

Abstract

A novel catabolic transformation of vanillic acid (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzoic acid) by microorganisms is reported. Several strains of Bacillus megaterium and a strain of Streptomyces are shown to convert vanillate to guaiacol (o-methoxyphenol) and CO2 by nonoxidative decarboxylation. Use of a modified most-probable-number procedure shows that numerous soils contain countable numbers (10(1) to 10(2) organisms per g of dry soil) of aerobic sporeformers able to convert vanillate to guaiacol. Conversion of vanillate to guaiacol by the microfloras of most-probable-number replicates was used as the criterion for scoring replicates positive or negative. Guaiacol was detected by thin-layer chromatography. These results indicate that the classic separations of catabolic pathways leading to specific ring-fashion substrates such as protocatechuate and catechol are often interconnectable by single enzymatic transformations, usually a decarboxylation.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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