| Caffeine catabolism and a xanthine oxidase involved in the alkaloid breakdown were studied in Pseudomonas putida L, a strain displaying high ability to grow on this substrate. Cells cultured with unlabelled caffeine and 14C labeled caffeine and xanthine showed that this alkaloid was broken-down via theobromine/paraxanthine -> 7-methylxanthine -> xanthine -> uric acid -> allantoin -> allantoic acid. Methyluric acids were formed from the oxidation of theobromine, paraxanthine and 7-methylxanthine, although no bacterial growth was observed on these compounds, indicating that this might be due to a wide substrate specificity of xanthine oxidase. This was confirmed by activity staining in PAGE where activity was observed with... |
