Phthalate Esters Metabolic Strain sp. GZ-YC7, a Potential Soil Degrader for High Concentration Di-(2-ethylhexyl) Phthalate.

As commonly used chemical plasticizers in plastic products, phthalate esters have become a serious ubiquitous environmental pollutant, such as in soil of plastic film mulch culture. Microbial degradation or transformation was regarded as a suitable strategy to solve the phthalate esters pollution. Thus, a new phthalate esters degrading strain sp. GZ-YC7 was isolated in this study, which exhibited the highest di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate degradation efficiency under 1000 mg/L and the strongest tolerance to 4000 mg/L. The comparative genomic analysis results showed that there exist diverse esterases for various phthalate esters such as di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate and dibutyl phthalate in sp. GZ-YC7. This genome characteristic possibly contributes to its broad substrate spectrum, high degrading efficiency, and high tolerance to phthalate esters. sp. GZ-YC7 has potential for the bioremediation of phthalate esters in polluted soil environments.