Overview

• A peer-reviewed PLOS One study isolated two Gordonia alkanivorans strains from grape leaves and skins that use guaiacol as their sole carbon source.
• Deleting the cytochrome P450 gene guaA halted guaiacol catabolism in vitro, confirming it is essential to the degradation pathway.
• In laboratory assays, guaiacol levels dropped to near undetectable after 96 hours, while the strains did not grow on related volatile phenols.
• Vineyard microbiome surveys showed smoke exposure caused a small but statistically significant shift, enriching several genera within the Bacilli class.
• Potential applications include vineyard inoculation, microbiome management, or winery-stage treatments, with efficacy, safety, and regulatory evaluation still required as producers faced losses of more than $3 billion in California and Oregon in 2020.