Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Gao, Rongrong
• Sun, Chaomin

Titel

A marine bacterial community capable of degrading poly(ethylene terephthalate) and polyethylene

Ist Teil von

• Journal of hazardous materials, 2021-08, Vol.416, p.125928-125928, Article 125928

Ort / Verlag

Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Plastic wastes are becoming the most common form of marine debris and present a growing global pollution problem. Here, we used a screening approach on hundreds of plastic waste-associated samples and discovered a marine bacterial community capable of efficiently colonizing and degrading both poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and polyethylene (PE). Using absolute quantitative 16S rRNA sequencing and cultivation methods, we obtained corresponding abundance and purified cultures of three bacterial strains that mediated plastic degradation. We further performed numerous techniques to characterize the efficient degradation of PET and PE by the reconstituted bacterial community containing these three bacteria. Additionally, we used liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to further demonstrate the degradation of PET and PE films by the reconstituted bacterial community. We conducted transcriptomic methods to investigate the plastic degradation process and potential degradation mechanisms mediated by our reconstituted bacterial community. Lastly, we overexpressed PE degradation enzymes based on transcriptomic results and verified their significant degradation effects on the PE films. Overall, our study establishes a stable marine bacterial community that efficiently degrades PET and PE and provides insights into plastic degradation pathways and their associated biological and mechanistic processes—paving the way for developing microbial products against plastic wastes. [Display omitted] •Discovery of a marine bacterial community that efficiently degrades PET and PE.•Reconstitution of a functional community capable of degrading PET and PE.•Efficient degradation of PET and PE by the reconstituted community was verified.•Plastic degradation process and potential degradation mechanisms were revealed.