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Petroleum hydrocarbons, including those discharged to the marine environment, are metabolized through different catabolic pathways by a number of microorganisms. Each hydrocarbon-degrading microorganism produces interesting enzymes for degrading alkanes and/or aromatic compounds that allow them to be used as sources of carbon and energy, and thus, these microbes occupy hydrocarbon-rich ecological niches. Their diversity and hydrocarbon-degrading metabolic abilities have been extensively examined in multiple environmental and phylogenetic contexts. Genes encoding enzymes involved in degradation, such as alkane hydroxylases and other monooxygenases, P450 cytochromes, rubredoxin reductases, and ferredoxin reductases, have been examined by genome analysis, and a number of them have been successfully cloned, expressed, purified, and their activities confirmed. However …