摘要：Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons have different natural and anthropogenic sources and are widespread in the environment. They have deleterious effect on us. Because of structural complexity and hydrophobicity most of their members are chemically inert, so they are difficult to transform by any chemical reaction or to remove from the environment either by natural process of volatilization, photo oxidation or any other method. As a result they remain suspended in the environment and cause pollution. Our study finds a new bacterium isolated from a petroleum contaminated soil near a major oil refinery plant in India that can degrade different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons effectively. The 16S rDNA analysis shows that the bacterial strain has 99% sequence similarity with Bacillus thuringiensis strain IAM 12077 and Bacillus weihenstephanensis strain DSM11821 but some of the biochemical parameters are not matching with them. Therefore, this strain will be designated as Bacillus thuringiensis strain NA2 and have the polyaromatic hydrocarbon degrading capability.
