The N,N'-dimethyl formamide (DMF) purified, alkali-hydrolyzed starch-graft-polyacrylonitrile superabsorbent gel (HSPAN) and its starch-free acid-depolymerized fraction were found to be capable of degradation by an indigenously isolated, naturally occurring, Gram positive cocco-baccillary rod-shaped bacterial culture, having centrally located endospores. This was evidenced by the ability of the culture to grow in a medium containing HSPAN and its fractions as the sole carbon or sole nitrogen source. Side chain polyacrylonitrile obtained by acid depolymerization of the starch-graft-polyacrylonitrile followed by alkali hydrolysis (AD-HPAN) was used by the isolated bacterial culture as source of nitrogen only. AD-HPAN was observed to be insoluble in water and DMF. Thus, viscosity changes that would occur on microbial degradation, were determined using alkali-hydrolyzed PAN synthesized without grafting onto starch (SYN-HPAN). Interestingly, SYN-HPAN supported bacterial growth by serving as a sole source of both carbon and nitrogen. The specific viscosity of SYN-HPAN exposed to the bacterial culture was lower than that of SYN-HPAN unexposed to bacterial culture. The degraded fragments of the gel could not be identified due to the complexity of the culture medium at the end of the experiment. Extrapolating the results of SYN-HPAN that was soluble in water, to the cleaved fragments of AD-HPAN suggested that the side chain could indeed be degraded by selective cleavage. Gravimetric measurements on DMF-purified HSPAN and AD-HPAN showed that the former was degraded by about 94% while the latter was degraded by about 53% after 21 days of continuous culturing.