Microbial strains and their diverse enzymes are important for their potenti
al applications in biotechnology, pharmaceutical industry, energy and agri
culture. Our strain Pseudomonas nitroreducens TX1 is a Gram-negative ba
cterium which is able to degrade various surfactants which were applied i
n many areas. Strain TX1 can use 0.05% to 20% of alkylphenol polyethoxyl
ates (APEOn) as sole carbon source to grow efficiently. APEOn and their re
lated products have been reported to be the endocrine disruptors. The eff
iciency by removing surfactants of strain TX1 was conducted by introduci
ng into soil environments or water environments in microcosms, and strai

n TX1 exhibited effective removal rate of surfactants in both systems. Base
d on the effective removal of environmental surfactants, strain TX1 was gr
anted with many patents.
We further used proteomics, transcriptomics, genetics and transposon m
utagenesis to investigate the mechanisms of strain TX1 degrading surfact
ants. More than forty genes/enzymes were proposed to be related to the
degrading pathway. In 2014, we published the first draft genome sequenc
e of P. nitroreducens. In 2016, we not only had a review article focusing on
the biodegradation of endocrine disruptors, but also proposed forty-two
genes and their roles involved in the degradation of surfactants. In 2019,
we proposed this strain is able to use Bio-Fenton reaction to degrade etho
xylated surfactants. Recently, we found that the integrity of lipopolysacch
arides of outer membrane in strain TX1 making the bacterium with lowere
d resistance to surfactants. As for the further and new knowledge of how
bacteria interacting with alkyphnol polyethoxylates surfactants, we can ex
tend our research to other surfactant degrading bacteria and target comp
ounds (food emulsifiers or drug excipients).