Benzaldehyde dehydrogenase (BZDH), an enzyme involved in the degradation of toluene and xylenes, is encoded by the phnN gene of Pseudomonas sp. strain DJ77. We determined the nucleotide sequence of a DNA fragment of 1,803 base pairs which included the phnN gene. The fragment contained an open reading frame of 1,506 base pairs to accommodate th 55 kDa sized enzyme encoding BZDH. The enzyme efficiently oxidized benzaldehyde, salicylaldehyde, m-tolualdehyde and ps-tolualdehyde.