Genome sequence and metabolic analysis revealed the catabolic pathways for the degradation of 1,2-dichloroethane and other related Xenobiotics in Ancylobacter aquaticus strain UV5

Abstract Ancylobacter aquaticus; family Xanthobacteraceae; order ‘Rhizobiales’, is poorly characterized for its metabolic, taxonomic and genomic properties. The species is interesting to study due to its facultatively methylotrophic, chemoorganotrophic and chemolithotrophic nature, allowing it to consume carbon dioxide, methanol, formate and other halogenated hydrocarbons, such as 1,2-dicholoethane (1,2-DCA), 2,4-dichlorobenzoate, 1,4-dichlorobezene and fluorobenzoate etc. as carbon sources. Ancylobacter aquaticus sp. strain UV5 (AaUV5), isolated from effluent sample of a wastewater treatment plant in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa, showed great efficiency for 1,2-DCA degradation. To gain more insights into the applications of this strain to degrade different xenobiotic compounds and exploit its full metabolic potential, whole genome sequencing of AaUV5 and annotation of the functional genes were performed. The whole genome represented approximately 5.3 Mbp with G + C content of 63.7% and predicted 4974, 5057 and 4905 CDS annotated by NCBI, RASTtk and Prokka prokaryotic genome annotation pipelines, respectively. The results conclude the presence of several xenobiotic compounds degrading genes including the ones encoding for 1,2-DCA degrading enzymes. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of the role of AaUV5 in 1,2-DCA degradation and its potential exploitation for bioremediation of other xenobiotic compounds.