Xenobiotics

Xenobiotics in the environment

Xenobiotics may be limited in the environment and difficult to access in areas such as the subsurface environment. Degradative organisms can be engineered to increase mobility in order to access these compounds, including enhanced chemotaxis. One limitation of the bioremediation process is that optimal conditions are required for proper metabolic functioning of certain microorganisms, which may be difficult to meet in an environmental setting. In some cases a single microorganism may not be capable of performing all metabolic processes required for degradation of a xenobiotic compound and so "syntrophic bacterial consortia" may be employed. In this case, a group of bacteria work in conjunction, resulting in dead end products from one organism being further degraded by another organism. In other cases, the products of one microorganisms may inhibit the activity another, and thus a balance must be maintained.