New principle of aromatic metabolism

芳香化合物是仅次于碳水化合物的第二重要的天然有机化合物。芳香降解的好氧途径被认为是建立的。分子氧被用来裂解稳定的碳环。所有途径的中间产物都是免费的。本项目旨在阐明有氧芳香代谢的新原理。因此，环不被氧切割，中间产物作为辅酶A硫酯结合。所研究的例子涉及2-氨基苯甲酸酯（邻氨基苯甲酸酯）、苯甲酸酯和苯乙酸酯在不同细菌属中的代谢。有三个特点是特别有趣的，(1)辅酶A在激活芳环中意想不到的作用，(2)新的氧合酶羟化和去芳化环，(3)酶最终水解打开去芳化环。

Aromatic compounds constitute the second most important class of natural organic compounds, next to carbohydrates. The aerobic pathways for aromatic degradation are considered established. Molecular oxygen is used for cleavage of the stable carbon ring. All intermediates of the pathways are free. This project aims at elucidating a new principle of aerobic aromatic metabolism. Thereby, the ring is not cleaved by oxygen and the intermediates are bound as coenzyme A thiosters. The studied examples concern the metabolism of 2-aminobenzoate (anthranilate), benzoate and phenylacetate in various bacterial genera. Three peculiarities are of special interest, (1) the unexpected role of coenzyme A in activating the aromatic ring, (2) the novel oxygenases that hydroxylate and dearomatize the ring, (3) the enzymes which finally hydrolytically open the dearomatized ring.