CodY constrains β-cypermethrin degradation by regulating physiological adaptation and soil ecological performance in Bacillus cereus GW-01.

Authors

Ying Lei, Ying Tang, Enting Wei, Mengyan He, Bowen Xu, Ying Liao, Wei Li, Yanchun Wang, Yanan Wang, Shufang Wang, Jiayuan Zhao

Published in

Synthetic and systems biotechnology. Volume 16. Pages 119-134. Epub Jul 23, 2026.

Abstract

β-cypermethrin (β-CY) is a widely used pyrethroid insecticide, yet the regulatory mechanisms that determine microbial degradation efficiency remain unclear. Here, we examined the role of the global nutrient-responsive regulator CodY in β-CY degradation by Bacillus cereus GW-01 using a wild-type strain, an in-frame codY deletion mutant, and a complemented strain. Loss of codY shortened the growth lag phase under β-CY stress and accelerated β-CY removal across 50-200 mg/L, reducing the apparent half-life from 3.61 to 12.62 d in the wild type to 2.42-9.61 d in ΔcodY. Complementation largely restored the wild-type phenotype, confirming CodY as a negative regulator of β-CY dissipation. Transcriptomic and physiological analyses showed that ΔcodY reallocated cellular functions toward branched-chain amino acid metabolism, transport, redox adjustment, envelope remodeling, adhesion, and biofilm formation. Consistently, the mutant exhibited higher cell-surface hydrophobicity, stronger auto-aggregation, enhanced biofilm formation, increased superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, and lower lipid peroxidation. In soil microcosms, ΔcodY also outperformed the wild type in both non-sterilized and sterilized soils, shortening β-CY half-lives by 13.5% and 22.8%, respectively. Community profiling further showed that ΔcodY altered bacterial and fungal succession during remediation, with stronger early selection, later bacterial richness recovery, and a more modular co-occurrence network. These results show that CodY restricts β-CY degradation by constraining both catabolic readiness and surface-associated stress adaptation. Targeting global regulatory nodes may therefore improve microbial remediation of hydrophobic pesticide residues in soil.

PMID:
42542612
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 02 Aug 2026.

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