Petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals are some of the most widespread contaminants affecting marine
ecosystems, urgently needing effective and sustainable remediation solutions. Microbial-based bioremediation is
gaining increasing interest as an effective, economically and environmentally sustainable strategy. Here, we
hypothesized that the heavily polluted coastal area facing the Sarno River mouth, which discharges >3 tons of
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and ~15 tons of heavy metals (HMs) into the sea annually, hosts
unique microbiomes including marine bacteria useful for PAHs and HMs bioremediation. We thus enriched the
microbiome of marine sediments, contextually selecting for HM-resistant bacteria. The enriched mixed bacterial
culture was subjected to whole-DNA sequencing, metagenome-assembled-genomes (MAGs) annotation, and
further sub-culturing to obtain the major bacterial species as pure strains
