In Silico dszC Gene Analysis, Modeling and Validation of Dibenzothiophene monooxygenase (DszC Enzyme) of Dibenzothiophene Desulfurizing Streptomyces sp.VUR PPR 102

Abstract

Human beings are heavily dependent on fossil fuels like coal and petroleum products for various daily activities in life. The large-scale usage of petroleum products releases different types of hazardous gasses, sulfur dioxide being one of them. The oxidation of organosulfur compounds in fuels release sulfur dioxide which is deleterious to humans and one of the causative factors for acid rains. The hydrodesulfurization, a conventional process is practiced for the elimination of sulfur from petroleum products during refining is not up to the mark for the total removal of sulfur content. Especially, highly recalcitrant organosulfur compounds like dibenzothiophene and its derivatives are more resistant to hydrodesulfurization. The biodesulfurization process which involves microorganisms for the removal of sulfur from petroleum products was suggested to be as the better alternative approach to hydrodesulfurization. It has been considered that dibenzothiophene as a reference model recalcitrant compound for biodesulfurization experiments and the microorganisms that exhibit 4S metabolic pathway for the elimination ofsulfur atom from dibenzothiophene as the potent desulfurizing strains. The 4S pathway is under the regulation of three genes (dszA, B and C) of dsz operon and they express the enzymatic proteins DszA(dibenzothiophene sulfone monooxygenase), DszB (hydroxyphenylbenzene sulfinate desulfinase) and DszC (dibenzothiophene monooxygenase), respectively. In the present study, the dszC gene pertaining to Streptomyces sp. VUR PPR 102 was made to produce corresponding sequence of DszC enzyme in National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) open reading frame finder. The amino acid sequence of DszC enzymatic protein was used in SWISS MODEL server and the three-dimensional model of DszC enzymatic protein was developed. The DszC model was validated in Rampage server, Swiss PDB Viewer, Verify3D and ERRAT servers.