Table 5.

Biodegradation of different PAHs by various microbes.

Microorganism/Co-Culture/Consortium	PAHs	Isolation from or Source	Degradation Pathway/Enzymes Involved	Degradation Product (Metabolite)	Percentage Transformation	Techniques Used	Reference
Halomonas sp.	Phenanthrene (Phe), pyrene (Pyr), naphthalene (NaP), and benzo [a]pyrene (BaP)	Brackish water sample from Pichavaram mangrove, Tamil Nadu, India,	–	–	Phe (67%), Pyr (63%), NaP (60%), BaP (58%)	–	(Govarthanan et al., 2020)
Ganoderma sp.	Naphthalene, phenanthrene and fluorene	–	Extracellular ligninolytic enzymes (laccase and non-specific peroxidases)	variable	naphthalene 34—73%, phenanthrene 9—67%, fluorene 11—64%	GC–MS	(Torres-Farradá et al., 2019)
Pleurotus ostreatus	napthalene	Pharmaceutical Microbiology Laboratory (NCRRT -Egypt)	Naphthalene dioxygenase and ligninolytic enzymes	α, β-naphthol, salicylic and benzoic acid	86.47%	HPLC and Thin layer chromatography (TLC)	(Elhusseiny et al., 2019)
Aspergillus terricola var americanus	Benz (a) Anthracene, Dibenz (a, h) Anthracene and Indeno [1, 2, 3-cd] Pyrene	Microbial Type Culture Collection and Gene Bank (MTCC), Chandigarh	both extracellular (Laccase enzyme) and intracellular (cytochrome P450 monooxygenase oxidation) pathways	variable	94.80, 90.16, and 93.80%, respectively, after 10 days	GC–MS	(Guntupalli et al., 2019)
Pseudomonas sp. JPN2	pyrene	crude oil was collected from Dagang Oilfield, Tianjin Province, Northern China	Aerobic degradation through dioxygenase enzyme system	4,5-dihydroxy-4,5-dihydropyrene, 4-phenanthrol, 1‑hydroxy-2-naphthoic acid and phthalate	82.88% after 25 d	GC–MS	(Jin et al., 2016)
Pseudomonas sp. JP1	benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), fluoranthene, and phenanthrene	Shantou Bay, Shantou, China	Anaerobic biodegradation with nitrate as the electron acceptor	variable	30, 47, and 5%, respectively	GC/MS	(Liang et al., 2014)
Ulva prolifera	Phenanthrene	coastal water (Rushan City, China)	–	–	91.3%	–	(C. Zhang et al., 2017)
Chlorella vulgaris	fluorene	Culture Collection of Algae of Bushehr Shrimp Research Institute, Iran	dioxygenase enzyme system based degradation	N-Hydroxymethylcarbazol, Dibutyl phthalate, Hexadecanoic acid, ethyl ester, 1,2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid, dioctyl ester	–	GC–MS	(Asghari et al., 2019)
Anabaena fertilissima	anthracene (ant) and pyrene (pyr)	center for conservation and utilization of blue green algae, iari, new delhi, india	–	degraded product for ANT was 2, 4-Dimethyl-1-heptene and for PYR it was 2, 3, 4-Trimethylhexane	degradation of ANT by 46% and PYR by 33%, at 5.0 mg/L and 3.0 mg/L	GC/MS	(Patel et al., 2016)
Cellulosimicrobium cellulans CWS2	benzo(a)pyrene	PAH contaminated soil	Anaerobic degradation under nitrate-reducing conditions	pyrene, 1-aminopyrene, phenanthrene, 1-methylphenanthrene, 1,7-dimethylnaphthalene, 1-(2-hydroxypropyl)naphthalene, 1-methylnaphthalene, 2‑hydroxy-3-(3-methyl-2-butenyl)−1,4-naphthalenedione, diethyl phthalate, and 2-acetyl-3-methoxybenzoc acid	78.8%) was observed in 13 days	GC–MS	(Qin et al., 2018)
Achromobacter xylosoxidans Strain DN002	Fluoranthene	petroleum-contaminated soil	Aerobic degradation through dioxygenases (catechol 1,2 dioxygenase and catechol 2,3 dioxygenase)	–	92.8% after 14 days	–	(Ma et al., 2015)
Hydrogenophaga sp. PYR1	pyrene and benzo[a]pyrene	river sediments in the east area of Taihu Lake (a large shallow lake in China)	Anaerobic degradation under ferric iron reduction conditions	benzoic acid, 2‑hydroxy-phenyl ester and naphthalene,1,2,3-trimethyl-4-propenyl	94% pyrene within 15 d	GC–MS	(Yan et al., 2017)
Mycobacterium gilvum	pyrene	activated sludge from a coking wastewater treatment plant of SGIS Songshan Co., Ltd., China	Aerobic degradation through dioxygenases	Phthalic acid, 1-Naphthol, 4-Phenanthrenol, 4-Phenanthrenecarboxylic acid	95% of pyrene (50 mg L − 1) in 7 days	GC–M–	(Wu et al., 2019)