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Ξενογενετική μελέτη των Ν-ακετυλοτρανσφερασών των αρυλαμινών (Bachelor thesis)

Καλαμαρά, Βασιλεία/ Kalamara, Vasileia

The NAT genes have been found in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, and they encode for the arylamine N-acetyltransferases. These enzymes are part of xenobiotic metabolism and use acyl-coenzyme A as a donor substrate and aromatic amines or arylhydrazines as acceptor substrates. Aromatic amines and arylhydrazines are a group of compounds that include pharmaceutical compounds, but also significant environmental toxic and polluting substances. As regards to the pharmaceutical compounds, their action, efficacy and potential side effects can depend on polymorphisms in the human NAT genes, as well as the gut microbiota. These effects are studied by the fields of pharmacogenetics and pharmacomicrobiomics respectively. As for bacterial NAT genes, they are primarily active in xenobiotic metabolism, allowing bacteria to survive in unfavorable chemical conditions. Due to the current environmental crisis, there is renewed interest on exploiting bacterial metabolism to improve sustainability. In particular, secondary metabolism can contribute to the development of biopesticides, while xenobiotic metabolism, which includes the NAT genes, to bioremediation. In this study, eleven bacterial strains were investigated for their resistance to three toxic aromatic amines in two growth media, as well as their ability to transform one of them, in order to identify bacterial strains that could be used in bioremediation programs. Additionally, the possible correlation between the presence of bacterial NAT genes and the biotransformation ability was explored. The results presented significant interest, showing substantial differences in resistance and biotransformation in the two growth media, highlighting four bacterial strains as promising candidates for bioremediation, and not revealing any correlation between NAT genes and biotransformation ability. However, further experimental studies are needed to verify the correlation between bacterial NAT genes and aromatic amine detoxification ability, as well as to develop better in situ or ex situ bioremediation strategies.