The microbial degradation of pyrene, a 4-ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), has been elucidated with the increasing number of pyrene-degrading bacteria that have been isolated in recent years. A pyrene degrading bacterium identified as Mycobacterium sp. strain S65, was isolated from a jet-fuel contaminated site in Sept-Iles, northern Quebec, Canada. S65 utilized pyrene, phenanthrene, and fluoranthene as sole carbon and energy sources, but did not degrade naphthalene, anthracene, and fluorene. Pyrene mineralization was enhanced by adding benz[a]anthracene, benzy[a]pyrene, or phenanthrene as cosubstrates. When added to PAH contaminated soil as a potential bioaugmentation agent, S65 did not appear to survive well, nor was it effective at degrading PAHs under these conditions. / Pyrene catabolic genes in S65 were partially characterized by Southern hybridization using a probe constructed from the naphthalene inducible pyrene dioxygenase gene, nidA, from the pyrene-degrading bacterium, Mycobacterium sp. strain PYR-1.

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