Efficient Degradation of 2-Mercaptobenzothiazole and Other Emerging Pollutants by Recombinant Bacterial Dye-Decolorizing Peroxidases

In recent years, concerns are being raised about the potential harmful effects of emerging pollutants (EPs) on human and aquatic lives. Extensive research is being conducted on developing efficient remediation strategies to target this new class of toxic pollutants. Studies focused on biological (enzyme-based) methods have shown potential as greener and possibly more economical alternatives to other treatment approaches, such as chemical methods. The current study focused on the use of recombinantly produced novel bacterial peroxidases, namely dye-decolorizing peroxidases (DyPs), to study their effectiveness in degrading a number of diverse EPs. In this context, a sensitive bioanalytical Liquid chromatography—tandem mass spectrometry (LCMSMS)-based method was developed to simultaneously detect a mixture of 31 EPs and to examine their degradability by a panel of seven different recombinant bacterial DyPs (rDyPs). We show that up to 8 of the 31 tested EPs could be degraded by at least one of the DyPs tested. The results also indicated that not all rDyPs behaved similarly in their abilities to degrade EPs, as some rDyPs (such as SviDyP and CboDyP) showed a promising potential to degrade EPs while others (such as ScDyP) were almost ineffective. Additionally, the role of redox mediators for effective emerging pollutant degradation by rDyPs was also examined, which showed dramatic improvement in the DyP-mediated degradation of five different EPs. Detailed analysis of 2-mercaptobenzothiazole degradation by SviDyP showed that six distinct breakdown products were generated. The present study showed for the first time that recombinant bacterial DyPs can be used for wastewater remediation by degrading a range of different EPs.