2023-09-19 16:15:42
The large amount of plastic waste that has spread over land and sea for decades is an ecological problem for which no easy solutions have been found. This situation could change from now on thanks to an astonishing achievement of genetic engineering: a marine bacteria that breaks down plastic in salt water.
This advance is the work of a team led by Tianyu Li, from North Carolina State University in the United States.
Specifically, the modified organism can decompose polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a plastic used in everything from water bottles to clothing, which contributes significantly to microplastic pollution in the sea.
To obtain this unique modified microorganism, the researchers worked on two species of bacteria. The first bacteria, Vibrio natriegens, thrives in salt water and stands out, among other things, because it reproduces very quickly. The second bacteria, Ideonella sakaiensis, stands out because it produces enzymes that allow it to break down PET and eat it.
The researchers took the DNA of Ideonella sakaiensis responsible for producing the enzymes that break down plastic and incorporated that genetic sequence into a plasmid. Plasmids are genetic sequences that can replicate in a cell, independently of the cell’s own chromosome. In other words, you can introduce a plasmid into a foreign cell and it will execute the instructions in the plasmid’s DNA. And that’s exactly what the researchers did.
A plastic bag floating in the water between fish. (Photo: Ben Mierement / NOAA US)
By introducing the plasmid containing the Ideonella sakaiensis genes into the bacteria Vibrio natriegens, the researchers made it produce the desired enzymes on the surface of its cells. The researchers then showed that the modified Vibrio natriegens was capable of breaking down PET in a room-temperature saltwater environment.
“From a practical point of view, this is also the first genetically modified organism we know of capable of decomposing PET microplastics in salt water,” says Tianyu Li.
The study is titled “Breakdown of polyethylene therepthalate microplastics under saltwater conditions using engineered Vibrio natriegens.” And it has been published in the academic journal AIChE Journal. (Source: NCYT from Amazings)
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