Some properties of azoreductase produced byPseudomonas cepacia

As for the recent research on azoreductase, (i) the reduction mechanism of azoreductase by hepatic cell-free extracts or rat internal contents, (ii) the spectrophotometric determination for the enzyme by rat hepatic microsome, and (iii) the fluorophotometric determination for rat liver cytosol using Methyl Red as a substrate were studied. There is no research on the purification of the enzyme and also on identification of metabolic intermediates using labelled compounds as substrates. In a previous paper, the microorganism, which degraded p-aminoazobenzene into aniline and p-phenylenediamine was isolated from waste waters of dyestuff industries in the Gifu district, Japan, and also reduction, oxidation and acetylation of p-aminoazobenzene were reported. In this paper, the authors describe partial purification procedure of azoreductase, some properties of the azoreductase and identification of degradative intermediates, p-phenylenediamine and aniline, from p-aminoazobenzene using two types of (/sup 14/C)-labelled p-aminoazobenzenes.