Water Bioinformatics: An Association between Estrogen Degradation and 16S rRNA Motifs

The existence of estrogenic compounds in the water severely pollutes the ecological environment. It is believed that microorganisms such as harmless bacterium can be used as a clean and safe medium to naturally degrade the estrogens. Many bacteria have been found to be capable of degrading estrogens in different ways and speeds. While the degradation mechanism, in particular, the association between the degradation capability and their phylogenetic motifs is unknown yet. In this paper, we analyzed the 16S rRNA gene sequences of 17 kinds of bacteria, which are usually used for phylogenetic studies. We examined the association between motifs and degradation by distinguishing such motifs that could separate those bacteria into several similar functional groups. Our computational result shows that the motifs have a various positive associations to the degradation, implying that different biodegradation factors are in the play.