Roles of oxygen and the intestinal microflora in the metabolism of lignin-derived phenylpropanoids and other monoaromatic compounds by termites

Prompted by our limited understanding of the degradation of lignin and lignin-derived aromatic metabolites in termites, we studied the metabolism of monoaromatic model compounds by termites and their gut microflora. Feeding trials performed with [ring-U-14C]benzoic acid and [ring-U-14C]cinnamic acid revealed the general ability of termites of the major feeding guilds (wood and soil feeders and fungus cultivators) to mineralize the aromatic nucleus. Up to 70% of the radioactive label was released as 14CO2; the remainder was more or less equally distributed among termite bodies, gut contents, and feces. Gut homogenates of the wood-feeding termites Nasutitermes lujae (Wasmann) and Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar) mineralized ring-labeled benzoic or cinnamic acid only if oxygen was present. In the absence of oxygen, benzoate was not attacked, and cinnamate was only reduced to phenylpropionate. Similar results were obtained with other, nonlabeled lignin-related phenylpropanoids (ferulic, 3,4-dihydroxycinnamic, and 4-hydroxycinnamic acids), whose ring moieties underwent degradation only if oxygen was present. Under anoxic conditions, the substrates were merely modified (by side chain reduction and demethylation), and this modification occurred at the same time as a net accumulation of phenylpropanoids formed endogenously in the gut homogenate, a phenomenon not observed under oxic conditions. Enumeration by the most-probable-number technique revealed that each N. lujae gut contained about 105 bacteria that were capable of completely mineralizing aromatic substrates in the presence of oxygen (about 10(8) bacteria per ml). In the absence of oxygen, small numbers of ring-modifying microorganisms were found (<50 bacteria per gut), but none of these microorganisms were capable of ring cleavage. Similar results were obtained with gut homogenates of R. flavipes, except that a larger number of anaerobic ring-modifying microorganisms was present (>5 X 10(3) bacteria per gut). Neither inclusion of potential cosubstrates (H2, pyruvate, lactate) nor inclusion of hydrogenotrophic partner organisms resulted in anoxic ring cleavage in most-probable-number tubes prepared with gut homogenates of either termite. The oxygen dependence of aromatic ring cleavage by the termite gut microbiota is consistent with the presence, and uptake by microbes, of O2 in the peripheral region of otherwise anoxic gut lumina (as reported in the accompanying paper [A. Brune, D. Emerson, and J. A. Breznak, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 61:2681-2687, 1995]). Taken together, our results indicate that microbial degradation of plant aromatic compounds can occur in termite guts and may contribute to the carbon and energy requirement of the host.