Gas chromatography and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry applied to the determination of a new pathway of pristane degradation by a marine mixed bacterial population

Degradation of pristane is rapidly achieved with high efficiency by a mixed bacterial population isolated from a marine biotope highly polluted with hydrocarbons.Analysis of the degradation products by gas chromatography and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry reveals that pristane is not only attacked according to classical mechanisms of β- and ω-oxidation, but also according to a new mechanism beginning with attack at the third carbon atom.Thanks to that mechanism, the population must be particularly suited to degradation of substrates resistant to α- and β-oxidations; this has been confirmed with an α-disubstituted structure.