Enzyme evolution in a microbial community growing on the herbicide Dalapon.

A seven-membered microbial community capable of utilising the herbicide Dalapon has been isolated by continuous-flow enrichment culture. The composition of this community has remained remarkably stable over thousands of hours in a Dalapon-limited chemostat. During this period, however, one member of the community, Pseudomonas putida, acquired the ability to grow on Dalapon through the evolution of an extant dehalogenase.