Nylon-eating bacteria

Nylon-eating bacteria are a strain of Flavobacterium that is capable of digesting certain byproducts of nylon 6 manufacture. This strain of Flavobacterium, Sp. KI72, became popularly known as nylon-eating bacteria, and the enzymes used to digest the man-made molecules became collectively known as nylonase.

Discovery

Chemical structure of 6-aminohexanoate

In 1975 a team of Japanese scientists discovered a strain of Flavobacterium, living in ponds containing waste water from a nylon factory, that was capable of digesting certain byproducts of nylon 6 manufacture, such as the linear dimer of 6-aminohexanoate. These substances are not known to have existed before the invention of nylon in 1935. Further study revealed that the three enzymes the bacteria were using to digest the byproducts were significantly different from any other enzymes produced by other Flavobacterium strains (or, for that matter, any other bacteria), and not effective on any material other than the manmade nylon byproducts.^[1]

Later research

This discovery led geneticist Susumu Ohno to speculate that the gene for one of the enzymes, 6-aminohexanoic acid hydrolase, had come about from the combination of a gene duplication event with a frameshift mutation.^[2] Ohno suggested that many unique new genes have evolved this way.

A 2007 paper that described a series of studies by a team led by Seiji Negoro of the University of Hyogo, Japan, suggested that in fact no frameshift mutation was involved in the evolution of the 6-aminohexanoic acid hydrolase.^[3] However, many other genes have been discovered which did evolve by gene duplication followed by a frameshift mutation affecting at least part of the gene. A 2006 study found 470 examples in humans alone.^[4]

Scientists have also been able to induce another species of bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, to evolve the capability to break down the same nylon byproducts in a laboratory by forcing them to live in an environment with no other source of nutrients. The P. aeruginosa strain did not seem to use the same enzymes that had been utilized by the original Flavobacterium strain.^[5] Other scientists were able to get the ability to generate the enzymes to transfer from the Flavobacterium strain to a strain of E. coli bacteria via a plasmid transfer.^[6]

Role in evolution teaching

There is scientific consensus that the capacity to synthesize nylonase most probably developed as a single-step mutation that survived because it improved the fitness of the bacteria possessing the mutation. This is seen as a good example of evolution through mutation and natural selection that has been observed as it occurs.^{[7][8][9][10]}

See also

• Biodegradable plastic
• E. coli long-term evolution experiment
• Radiotrophic fungus
• Evolution
• Creation-evolution controversy
• Nylon-eating bacteria and creationism
• London Underground mosquito
• Lonicera fly

Notes

References

• Kinoshita S, Kageyama S, Iba K, Yamada Y, Okada H (1981). "Utilization of a cyclic dimer and linear oligomers of ε-aminocapronoic acid by Achromobacter guttatus K172". Agric. Biol. Chem. 116: 547–551.  FEBS 1981
• Yomo T, Urabe I, Okada H (May 1992). "No stop codons in the antisense strands of the genes for nylon oligomer degradation". Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 89 (9): 3780–4. doi:10.1073/pnas.89.9.3780. PMC 525574. PMID 1570296. 
• Prijambada ID, Negoro S, Yomo T, Urabe I (May 1995). "Emergence of nylon oligomer degradation enzymes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO through experimental evolution". Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 61 (5): 2020–2. PMC 167468. PMID 7646041.