title: Degradation of alkanes by bacteria.
abstract: Pollution of soil and water environments by crude oil has been, and is still today, an important problem. Crude oil is a complex mixture of thousands of compounds. Among them, alkanes constitute the major fraction. Alkanes are saturated hydrocarbons of different sizes and structures. Although they are chemically very inert, most of them can be efficiently degraded by several microorganisms. This review summarizes current knowledge on how microorganisms degrade alkanes, focusing on the biochemical pathways used and on how the expression of pathway genes is regulated and integrated within cell physiology.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biotecnología Microbiana, Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, CSIC, Campus de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain. frojo@cnb.csic.es
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rojo
mesh_terms: D000473:Alkanes / Q000378:metabolism*; D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D004787:Environmental Pollution; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D053858:Metabolic Networks and Pathways
chemical_list: D000473:Alkanes