Abstract: Triphenylmethane dyes have been extensively used in the textile,medicine and food industries,while the wastewater produced contains large amounts of harmful substances which accumulate in the environment by continuous discharge and result in a great threat to human health.To decontaminate the wastewater,physico-chemical methods are used currently,which are expensive and cause secondary pollution,so more and more attention has been paid on the biological degradation with environment-friendly characters on the dyes.This paper is on the angle of the bacterial degradation on triphenylmethane dyes,the main reported decolorization bacteria,as well as related metabolites,pathways and biodegradation mechanisms are reviewed.What's more,the development of the biodegradation on triphenylmethane dyes in the future is also prospected.