Synergistic co-metabolism enhancing the crude oil degradation by

Bacterial degradation of hydrocarbons during co-metabolism with glucose often resulted in variable degradation efficiency. This study explored the mechanistic understanding of the metabolic response during co-metabolism in IMPORTANCE: In hydrocarbon-contaminated soil, the presence of easily metabolizable carbon sources can lead to carbon catabolite repression. This repression reduces the activity of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria, slowing down the rate of bioremediation. In this study, the most robust yet underexplored tool-liquid chromatography-high resolution accurate mass spectrometry system-was used to study the metabolic response and functional state of A. oleivorans DR1 during the crude oil degradation in the presence or absence of either biosurfactant or glucose supplementation. Here, synergistic co-metabolism by DR1 for crude oil degradation is reported. DR1 preferred hydrocarbons over glucose since glucose was not readily utilizable due to lack of enzymes (e.g., glucokinase). However, the glucose enhanced the hydrocarbon degradation in DR1 through the high production of organic acids that reacted on hydrocarbon chains and underwent fatty acid synthesis. This study added