title: Identification of Chromobacterium violaceum genes with potential biotechnological application in environmental detoxification.
abstract: Chromobacterium violaceum is a Gram-negative bacterium found in a wide variety of tropical and subtropical ecosystems. The complete genome sequence of C. violaceum ATCC 12472 is now available, and it has considerable biotechnological potential for various applications, such as environmental detoxification, as well as medical and agricultural use. We examined the biotechnological potential of C. violaceum for environmental detoxification. Three operons, comprising the ars operon, involved in arsenic resistance, the cyn operon, involved in cyanate detoxification, and the hcn operon, encoding a cyanase, responsible for biogenic production of cyanide, as well as an open reading frame, encoding an acid dehalogenase, were analyzed in detail. Probable catalytic mechanisms for the enzymes were determined, based on amino acid sequence comparisons and on published structural information for these types of proteins.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Genética/Laboratório de Polimorfismo de DNA, Universidade Federal do Pará, Campus Universitário do Guamá, Rua Augusto Correa, 01, 66075-970 Belém, PA, Brasil.
authors.forename: Marta S P
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Carepo
authors.forename: Juliana S Nina de
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Azevedo
authors.forename: Jorge I R
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Porto
authors.forename: Alexandra R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Bentes-Sousa
authors.forename: Jacqueline da Silva
authors.initials: Jda S
authors.lastname: Batista
authors.forename: Artur L C da
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Silva
authors.forename: Maria P C
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Schneider
mesh_terms: D001151:Arsenic / Q000378:metabolism / Q000494:pharmacology; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D001483:Base Sequence; D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D001709:Biotechnology; D002861:Chromobacterium / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D003486:Cyanides / Q000378:metabolism; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D006867:Hydrolases / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000235:genetics; D009876:Operon / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D003486:Cyanides; D006867:Hydrolases; C034507:2-haloacid dehalogenase; D001151:Arsenic