Chapter 43 



Pathway of Lower Alkane Oxidation 

 by Pseudomonads 



Jacques C. Senez and Edgard Azoulay 



Ahe existence of bacteria, yeasts and molds able to metab- 

 olize the paraffins was discovered by Sohngen in 1913, and since 

 this pioneer work the repartition of these organisms in natural 

 environments, their systematics and their nutritional require- 

 ments have been the subject of an extensive literature which 

 has been reviewed by Zobell ( 14 ) and Beerstecher ( 3 ) . Particu- 

 larly, it has been shown that the bacteria responsible for the 

 breakdown of hydrocarbons are widespread in the sea where they 

 play an important role in limiting, at least to some extent, the 

 industrial nuisance of water pollution by oil and petroleum 

 wastes. 



After the end of World War II, the pathways of the 

 bacteria oxidation of hydrocarbons received an increasing 

 interest and several important contributions to tliis field have 

 been published, namely by Imelick (4), Treccani et ah (13), 

 Kallio and coworkers (11), Thijsse and van der Linden (12), 

 For our own part we have stLidied the oxidation of lower (Co to 

 Cio) alkanes by Pseudomonads of marine and terrestrial origin 

 and a brief summary of this work, some preliminary accounts 

 of which have already appeared (1, 7, 8, 9), will be reported in 

 the present contribution. 



EXPERIMENTAL OBSERVATIONS 



Most of our work has been made with a typical strain of 

 Pseudomonas aeruginosa (S 20) which was isolated from soil 

 and produces both pyocyanin and pyoverdin ( 8 ) . This organism 

 grows profusely on a mineral medium containing a Cg to Cig 



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