The Zechel lab, in collaboration with the labs of Pallitsch and Hammerschmidt (University of Vienna), has discovered a new oxidative enzyme pathway for the degradation of methylphosphonate. This pathway is used by marine bacteria to utilize methylphosphonate, a prominent natural product in the world’s oceans, as an alternate source of inorganic phosphate. The cycling of phosphate in the world’s oceans has just become more complicated!
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30810303)
