Bacterial PAH degradation in marine and terrestrial habitats

• PAH degradation knowledge requires a progressive cell → ecosystem omics approach.
• Community structure/function studies need curated and culture-fed databases.
• Bacterial PAH degradation networks are organized in funnel shaped modules.
• Cometabolism channels individual PAHs through cooperative catabolic networks.
• Molecular methods start to unravel the diversity of PAH degraders and catabolic genes.

Cycling of pollutants is essential to preserve functional marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Progress in optimizing these natural biological processes relies on the identification of the underlying microbial actors and deciphering their interactions at molecular, cellular, community, and ecosystem level. Novel advances on PAH biodegradation are built on a progressive approach that span from pure cultures to environmental communities, illustrating the complex metabolic networks within a single cell, and their further implications in higher complexity systems. Recent analytical chemistry and molecular tools allow a deeper insight into the active microbial processes actually occurring in situ, identifying active functions, metabolic pathways and key players. Understanding these processes will provide new tools to assess biodegradation occurrence and, as a final outcome, predict the success of bioremediation thus reducing its uncertainties, the main drawback of this environmental biotechnology.

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