Role of UDP-Glycosyltransferase () Genes in Detoxification and Glycosylation of 1-Hydroxyphenazine (1-HP) in .

is a useful model organism to study the xenobiotic detoxification pathways of various natural and synthetic toxins, but the mechanisms of phase II detoxification are understudied. 1-Hydroxyphenazine (1-HP), a toxin produced by the bacterium , kills . We previously showed that detoxifies 1-HP by adding one, two, or three glucose molecules in N2 worms. Our current study evaluates the roles that some UDP-glycosyltransferase () genes play in 1-HP detoxification. We show that and knockout mutants are more sensitive to 1-HP than reference strains N2 or PD1074. Our data also show that knockout mutants produce reduced amounts of the trisaccharide sugars, while the knockout mutants produce reduced amounts of all 1-HP derivatives except for the glucopyranosyl product compared to the reference strains. We characterized the structure of the trisaccharide sugar phenazines made by and showed that one of the sugar modifications contains an -acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) in place of glucose. This implies broad specificity regarding UGT function and the role of genes other than in adding GlcNAc, at least in small-molecule detoxification.