| Share facebook | RSS

5
Comments

ambassador Report View

Plastic eating enzyme

by Lohita Swaminathan | 19-04-2018 02:47 recommendations 0

Researchers in the US and Britain have discovered an enzyme which eats plastic and can help solve the global problem of more than eight million tons of plastic pollution being dumped into the world's oceans every year.


Scientists at the University of Portsmouth and the US Energy Department?s National Renewable Energy Laboratory researched on a naturally occurring bacterium discovered in Japan a few years ago, believed to have evolved in a waste recycling center. Known as Ideonella sakaiensis, it appears to feed exclusively on polyethylene terephthalate (PET), used widely in plastic bottles.


The researchers' goal was to understand how one of its enzymes-called PETase-worked, by figuring out its structure. But they ended up accidentally engineering an enzyme which was even better at breaking down PET plastics. Using a super-powerful X-ray, 10 billion times brighter than the Sun, they were able to make an ultra-high-resolution three-dimensional model of the enzyme.


Scientists from the University of South Florida and the University of Campinas in Brazil did computer modeling which showed PETase looked similar to another enzyme, cutinase, found in fungus and bacteria. So they mutated the PETase active site to make it more like cutinase, and unexpectedly found that this mutant enzyme was even better than the natural PETase in breaking down PET.


Researchers say they are now working on further improvements to the enzyme, with the hope of industrial use in breaking down plastics.


Source: https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/

 

no image

  • Dormant user Lohita Swaminathan
 
 
  • recommend

5 Comments

  • Joon Ho Mentor says :
    Hello Lohita, I heard about plastic eating bugs (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/25/plastic-eating-bugs-wax-moth-caterpillars-bee) but I never heard of the case about enzyme!
    Really surprised, but this will not affect the digestion and internal organ functions of bugs or animals that eat plastics at least, so I think this is more environmental and eco-friendly case to be!
    This would also devote itself to the different field of renewable energy section, and hope it gets successful progression later on, too!
    Thanks for very informative and interesting news!!!
    Posted 20-04-2018 02:24

  • Gyeongrin mentor says :
    Hello Lohita!
    Plastic has been a big problem world wide and it is nice to hear good news about enzymes that can break down plastics. We seek solutions from nature and sometimes accidentally find a variation which better suits the situation that we first aimed to solve!
    Thanks for sharing the information :)
    Posted 19-04-2018 20:29

  • Lohita Swaminathan says :
    Its a very interesting new development. I have given the source. The news has been found in tens of newspapers worldwide.
    Posted 19-04-2018 11:37

Eco Generation

  • Eco Generation says :
    what an interesting story! Can you share the link of the news?
    Posted 19-04-2018 09:41

Post a comment

Please sign in

Opportunities

Resources