Novel 3,6-Dihydroxypicolinic Acid Decarboxylase Mediated Picolinic Acid Catabolism in Alcaligenes faecalis JQ135

Abstract Alcaligenesfaecalis strain JQ135 utilizes picolinic acid (PA) as sole carbon and nitrogen source for growth. In this study, we screened a 6-hydroxypicolinic acid (6HPA) degradation-deficient mutant through random transposon mutagenesis. The mutant hydroxylated 6HPA into an intermediate, identified as 3,6-dihydroxypicolinic acid (3,6DHPA) with no further degradation. A novel decarboxylase PicC was identified that was found to be responsible for the decarboxylation of 3,6DHPA to 2.5-dihydroxypyridine. Although, PicC belonged to amidohydrolase_2 family, it shows low similarity (<45%) when compared to other reported amidohydrolase_2 family decarboxylases. Moreover, PicC was found to form a monophyletic group in the phylogenetic tree constructed using PicC and related proteins. Further, the genetic deletion and complementation results demonstrated that picC was essential for PA degradation. The PicC was Zn 2+ -dependent non-oxidative decarboxylase that can specifically catalyze the irreversible decarboxylation of 3,6DHPA to 2.5-dihydroxypyridine. The K m and k cat towards 3,6DHPA were observed to be 13.44 μM and 4.77 s -1 , respectively. Site-directed mutagenesis showed that His163 and His216 were essential for PicC activity. Importance Picolinic acid is a natural toxic pyridine derived from L-tryptophan metabolism and some aromatic compounds in mammalian and microbial cells. Microorganisms can degrade and utilize picolinic acid for their growth, and thus, a microbial degradation pathway of picolinic acid has been proposed. Picolinic acid is converted into 6-hydroxypicolinic acid, 3,6-dihydroxypicolinic acid, and 2,5-dihydroxypyridine in turn. However, there was no physiological and genetic validation for this pathway. This study demonstrated that 3,6DHPA was an intermediate in PA catabolism process and further identified and characterized a novel amidohydrolase_2 family decarboxylase PicC. It was also shown that PicC could catalyze the decarboxylation process of 3,6-dihydroxypicolinic acid into 2,5-dihydroxypyridine. This study provides a basis for understanding PA degradation pathway and the underlying molecular mechanism.