Degradation of aromatic compounds by Trichosporon sp.

: When cultured in liquid media, samples of the yeast Trichosporon grow readily and degrade phenol; glutamate was found to stimulate both fungal growth and phenol catabolism, with a distinctive lag. In addition, this same strain grows in the presence of 2-chloro-phenol and 2-methyl, 4-chlorophenol (which are also degraded) and in the presence of 2-nitrophenol, 4-nitrophenol, 2,4-dinitrophenol, which are either degraded or not, as in the case of 4-nitrophenol. The kinetics of both growth and of aromatic catabolism is suggestive of inductive phenomena for key metabolic enzymes.