Predicting the plastic biodegradation potential within microbial lineages and across global ecosystems

Area of Science:

• Environmental microbiology
• Biotechnology
• Genomics

Background:

• Plastic waste poses a significant global threat to ecosystems and health.
• Existing plastic waste management strategies are overwhelmed by production rates.
• Microorganisms offer a promising avenue for plastic biodegradation via enzymatic processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the distribution of genes encoding plastic-degrading enzymes across diverse habitats and microbial taxa.
• To identify potential microbial candidates for plastic biodegradation.
• To explore geographic and taxonomic patterns of plastic-degrading microorganisms.

Main Methods:

• Construction of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) from known plastic-degrading enzyme sequences.
• Application of HMMs to analyze environmental metagenome datasets (landfill, soil, river, lake, ocean).
• Screening of archaeal and bacterial genomes from the Genome Taxonomy Database (GTDB).

Main Results:

• Numerous gene hits for potential plastic-degrading enzymes were found in both aquatic and terrestrial environments.
• The highest abundance of hits was observed in polluted rivers, polar oceans, and deep ocean samples.
• Analysis of GTDB genomes confirmed known plastic-degrading lineages and identified potential novel archaeal taxa.

Conclusions:

• This research provides a comprehensive overview of the distribution of plastic-degrading enzymes and microorganisms.
• The findings highlight specific environments and microbial groups as valuable resources for discovering new plastic-degrading enzymes.
• The study supports the development of enzymatic biodegradation solutions for plastic waste management.