Bioremediation shows great promise as an approach to hazardous waste management.
The presence and expression of appropriate catabolic capacities, however, can limit the success of bioremediation. We seek to overcome such limitations by exploiting favorable substrate interactions. A stimulatory substrate could induce catabolic enzymes, act as primary substrates for cometabolism, or serve as growth substrates for the proliferation of desirable phenotypes. This would be particularly beneficial when the target compounds are present at insufficient concentrations to support steady microbial growth, or to establish and sustain in situ reactive zones to attenuate BTX migration and protect downgradient groundwater resources. We also investigated substrate interactions and enzyme activity and longevity under different substrate and electron acceptor conditions, as discussed below.