Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain PP4 and Acinetobacter lwoffii strain ISP4 metabolize isophthalate as a sole source of carbon and energy. Isophthalate is known to be a competitive inhibitor of glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), which is involved in C and N metabolism. Strain PP4 showed carbon source-dependent modulation of NADP-GDH; GDH I was produced when cells were grown on isophthalate, while GDH II was produced when cells were grown on glucose. Strain ISP4 produced a single form of NADP-GDH, GDH P , when it was grown on either isophthalate or rich medium (2YT). All of the forms of GDH were purified to homogeneity and characterized. GDH I and GDH II were found to be homotetramers, while GDH P was found to be a homohexamer. GDH II was more sensitive to inhibition by isophthalate (2.5-and 5.5-fold more sensitive for amination and deamination reactions, respectively) than GDH I . Differences in the N-terminal sequences and electrophoretic mobilities in an activity-staining gel confirmed the presence of two forms of GDH, GDH I and GDH II , in strain PP4. In strain ISP4, irrespective of the carbon source, the GDH P produced showed similar levels of inhibition with isophthalate. However, the specific activity of GDH P from isophthalate-grown cells was 2.5-to 3-fold higher than that of GDH P from 2YT-grown cells. Identical N-terminal sequences and electrophoretic mobilities in the activity-staining gel suggested the presence of a single form of GDH P in strain ISP4. These results demonstrate the ability of organisms to modulate GDH either by producing an entirely different form or by increasing the level of the enzyme, thus enabling strains to utilize isophthalate more efficiently as a sole source of carbon and energy.Phthalate isomers and their esters are used widely in various industries and are considered potent pollutants because of their carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and endocrine-disrupting properties (31, 32). Due to the persistence of these compounds in the environment, microorganisms have evolved and adapted to utilize them as sole sources of carbon and energy. Compared to the organisms whose metabolic pathways for isophthalate degradation have been studied, a large number of organisms have been studied in detail to determine their metabolic pathways for phthalate and terephthalate degradation (12,17,18,20,25,26,29,31,32,35,36). The fewer isophthalate-degrading strains and the difficulties in isolating them could be due to the fact that isophthalate acts as a competitive inhibitor of glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), which plays an important role at the interface of C metabolism and N metabolism (5,11,13,16,27,28,30,33,34). GDH performs oxidative deamination of glutamate to ␣-ketoglutarate (␣-KG) and reductive amination of ␣-KG to glutamate, and depending on the cofactor requirement the enzyme is either NAD-, NADP-, or NAD(P)-GDH (7, 19).Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain PP4 and Acinetobacter lwoffii strain ISP4 utilize isophthalate as a sole source of carbon and energy (31, 32). Thus, in these strains, the carbo...