ArticleMicrobial biotechnology2024
Evolutionary obstacles and not C-F bond strength make PFAS persistent.
Article in Microbial biotechnology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Inclusion Complexation of Native and Functionalized α-, β-, and γ-Cyclodextrins with PFAS: An Experimental and Molecular Simulation Study.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2026Article
- CLCEnvironmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Understanding the Defluorination Mechanism of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Wastewater: From Microscopic Process to Practical Application.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Review
- Article
- A hydrolase from Serratia liquefaciens IMD717 with esterase, dehalogenase and N-deformylase activities.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2026Article
- Fluoride triggers lysis inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- FAIR and Effective Communication of Data on Chemical Contaminant Biotransformation in the Environment.Environmental science & technology letters · 2025Review
- Investigating anaerobic digestion microbiome resilience to high PFOA and PFOS mixtures during cometabolism.Bioresource technology · 2025Article
- Geographic Range Size Predicts Butterfly Species' Tolerance to Heavy Metals More Than Evolutionary History With Toxic Larval Diets.Evolutionary applications · 2025Article
- Complete genome sequence of fluoroacetate-degradingMicrobiology resource announcements · 2025Article
- CubicPat: Investigations on the Mental Performance and Stress Detection Using EEG Signals.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- A prescription for engineering PFAS biodegradation.The Biochemical journal · 2024Review
- Phenotypic Plasticity During Organofluorine Degradation Revealed by Adaptive Evolution.Microbial biotechnology · 2024Article
- Burning question: Rethinking organohalide degradation strategy for bioremediation applications.Microbial biotechnology · 2024Review
- The link between ancient microbial fluoride resistance mechanisms and bioengineering organofluorine degradation or synthesis.Nature communications · 2024Review
- Evolutionary obstacles and not C-F bond strength make PFAS persistent.Microbial biotechnology · 2024Article
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Abstract
The fate of organic matter in the environment, including anthropogenic chemicals, is largely predicated on the enzymatic capabilities of microorganisms. Microbes readily degrade, and thus recycle, most of the ~100,000 commercial chemicals used in modern society. Per- and polyfluorinated compounds (PFAS) are different. Many research papers posit that the general resistance of PFAS to microbial degradation is based in chemistry and that argument relates to the strength of the C-F bond. Here, I advance the opinion that the low biodegradability of PFAS is best formulated as a biological optimization problem, hence evolution. The framing of the problem is important. If it is framed around C-F bond strength, the major effort should focus on finding and engineering new C-F cleaving enzymes. The alternative, and preferred approach suggested here, is to focus on the directed evolution of biological systems containing known C-F cleaving systems. There are now reports of bacteria degrading and/or growing on multiply fluorinated arenes, alkenoic and alkanoic acids. The impediment to more efficient and widespread biodegradation in these systems is biological, not chemical. The rationale for this argument is made in the five sections below that follow the Introduction.
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