Scientists Engineer Plastics-Eating Enzyme

Researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom have designed an enzyme that can help solve the problem of PET bottle trash.

This breakthrough is the latest in a series of attractive research results, suggesting that certain enzymes and microorganisms that use them may reduce the degradation rate of plastic waste hills.

Scientists from the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the University of Portsmouth said they have adjusted a bacterial enzyme to improve its ability to degrade PET. This natural enzyme is found in bacteria called Ideonella sakaiensis. Researchers recently discovered that the bacteria degrade PET at the Japan Waste Recycling Center.

Millions of tons of PET bottles are produced each year, many of which are thrown aside as garbage. PET can last for hundreds of years in the natural environment.

“We can all play an important role in dealing with plastics, but the scientific community that ultimately created these “magic materials” must now use all available technologies to develop real solutions,” said one researcher John McGeehan on April 16th. In the press release of the day. McGeehan is director of the Institute of Biology and Biomedical Sciences at the School of Biological Sciences at Portsmouth University.

McGeehan and colleagues are studying the structure of natural PET degrading enzymes and they found that the degradation rate can be increased by manipulating the chemical structure of the enzyme. This improvement is not great, but scientists believe that there can be greater improvements by modifying the protein part of the enzyme.

Independent of the work of the U.S. Department of Energy and the United Kingdom, researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology are studying the structure of natural enzymes. They also claim that they have found ways to improve their PET degradation potential. The U.S. and U.K. results were published in peer-reviewed journals of the National Academy of Sciences and published in a press release from the University of Portsmouth. Research in Korea was published in a press release issued by peer-reviewed Nature Communications and KAIST.

The researchers found that natural and improved enzymes first work by sliding into the folds of PET long-chain molecules. Degradation begins when the polymer chains are cut in half by enzymes. The degradation then proceeds to the end of the severed polymer chain.