Biodegradation and metabolic pathway of sulfamethoxazole by Pseudomonas psychrophila HA-4, a newly isolated cold-adapted sulfamethoxazole-degrading bacterium

Sulfamethoxazole is a common antibiotic that is frequently detected in wastewater and surface water. This study investigated the biodegradation and metabolic pathway of sulfamethoxazole by Pseudomonas psychrophila HA-4, a cold-adapted bacterium. Strain HA-4, which uses sulfamethoxazole as its sole source of carbon and energy, was isolated at a low temperature (10 °C) and identified as P. psychrophila by physico-biochemical characterization and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. Strain HA-4 removed sulfamethoxazole at temperatures ranging from 5.0 °C to 30 °C, with the maximal removal rate at 10 °C. The maximal removal rate of sulfamethoxazole by strain HA-4 was 34.30 % after 192 h at 10 °C. The highest percentage of unsaturated fatty acid was determined to be 23.03 % at 10 °C, which adheres to the characteristic for cold-adapted psychrophiles and psychrotrophs. At low concentrations of sulfamethoxazole, the growth kinetics correlated well with the Haldane model. The single-substrate parameter values of sulfamethoxazole on cell growth were determined to be μmax = 0.01 h−1, Ks = 20.91 mg/l and Ki = 170.60 mg/l. Additionally, the major intermediates from sulfamethoxazole biodegradation by strain HA-4, including aniline, 3-amino-5-methylisoxazole, 4-aminothiophenol and sulfanilamide, were identified by GC-MS and high-resolution mass spectrometry (HR-MS) analysis. The results demonstrate that strain HA-4 has the potential to degrade sulfamethoxazole at low temperatures.