Microbial Degradation of Phenoxyacetic Acid and 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid in Continuous Culture

The degradation of aromatic xenobiotic compounds by aerobic bacteria is an important part of wastewater treatment (Alexander, 1980). There are different ways of gaining microorganisms which are able to degrade xenobiotics: Enrichment and isolation of bacteria with desired degradation capacities from soil and water samples (Cook et al., 1983; Amy et al., 1985).Improvement of strains for degradation of new substrates by mutation and selection (Kellog et al., 1981; Kiibane et al., 1982).Construction of degradation pathways for recalcitrant compounds by genetic engineering (Lehrbach et al., 1984, Chatterjee et al., 1982).