English: The s-triazine atrazine is a widely used herbicide that is persistent in soils. It is prone to ground and surface water contamination. A range of soil bacteria, including both Gram-negative and Gram-positive strains can degrade atrazine, utilizing it as a nitrogen and carbon source. In this aerobic pathway, which has been studied in most detail in the bacterium Pseudomonas sp. strain ADP, atrazine is catabolized in three enzymatic steps to cyanurate (a trimer), which can be further metabolized by ring cleavage to carbon dioxide and ammonia. The first hydrolytic enzyme, encoded by either atzA gene or trzN gene (EC 3.8.1.8), converts atrazine to hydroxy-atrazine. Two additional hydrolases, encoded by the atzB (EC 3.5.99.3) and atzC (EC 3.5.99.4) genes, continue the process by removing the ethylamine and isopropYl-amine groups. While some micro-organisms possess all of the required enzymes, others degrade atrazine by a community-approach, where different micro-organisms have some of the enzymes, and the intermediates in the metabolic pathway are passed between the soil bacteria.

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