Ferulic acid degradation encoded by a catabolic plasmid

A strain of Pseudomonas fluorescens was isolated from soil with ferulic acid as sole source of carbon and energy. The ability to degrade this compound iis plasmid-encoded, as shown by the transfer of such degradative capacity from the wild-type into a recipient strain by conjugation and isolation of a plasmid from the exconjugants, identical to that from the wild-type and the exconjugants.