Pseudomonas putida

Pseudomonas putida is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped, saprophytic soil bacterium. It has a versatile metabolism and is amenable to genetic manipulation, making it a common organism used in research, bioremediation, and synthesis of chemicals and other compounds. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has listed P. putida strain KT2440 as Host-vector system safety level 1 certified (HV-1), indicating that it is safe to use without any extra precautions. Thus, use of P. putida in many research labs is preferable to some other Pseudomonas species, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, for example, which is an opportunistic pathogen. Based on 16S rRNA analysis, P. putida was taxonomically confirmed to be a Pseudomonas species (sensu stricto) and placed, along with several other species, in the P. putida group, to which it lends its name. However, phylogenomic analysis of complete genomes from the entire Pseudomonas genus clearly showed that the genomes that were named as P. putida did not form a monophyletic clade, but were dispersed and formed a wider evolutionary group (the putida group) that included other species as well, such as P. alkylphenolia, P. alloputida, P. monteilii, P. cremoricolorata, P. fulva, P. parafulva, P. entomophila, P. mosselii, P. plecoglossicida and several genomic species (new species which are currentely not validely defined as new species. A variety of P. putida, called multiplasmid hydrocarbon-degrading Pseudomonas, is the first patented organism in the world. Because it is a living organism, the patent was disputed and brought before the United States Supreme Court in the historic court case Diamond v. Chakrabarty, which the inventor, Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, won. It demonstrates a very diverse metabolism, including the ability to degrade organic solvents such as toluene. This ability has been put to use in bioremediation, or the use of microorganisms to degrade environmental pollutants. The protein count and GC content of the (63) genomes that belong to the P.