A comprehensive biotechnological and molecular insight into plastic degradation by microbial community

Abstract

Environmental pollution by petrochemical plastic is a matter of serious global concern. Several microbes have the potential to degrade synthetic polymers with the aid of various genes, enzymes, and metabolic pathways. However, the biodegradation of petrochemical plastics by natural microbes is inherently slow. The slow rate of degradation stems from the high molecular weight, strong chemical bonding, and extremely hydrophobic nature of polymer, all of which hinder biodegradability. Nevertheless, the role of genes, enzymes, and interactions between microbes and plastic as a substrate has been inadequately explored. Notably, several biotechnological approaches (such as synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, and bioinformatics tools) have been developed for the efficient biodegradation of synthetic polymers. Further, exploiting the degradative potential of microbes, plastic wastes can be utilized as feedstock for the production of high value compounds. This will not only avert environmental pollution but would also facilitate waste management and circular economy. However, the major limitations to these approaches are lack of experimental validations in real world. In this regard, the present review provides a comprehensive assessment of the biotechnological and molecular advancement in plastic biodegradation to facilitate a better understanding of the role of microbes, genes, enzymes, and biodegradation pathways in plastic mineralization.

Toward Microbial Recycling and Upcycling of Plastics: Prospects and Challenges

“…These include Fusarium oxysporum, Fusarium falciforme , and Purpureocillum lilacinum ( Spina et al, 2021 ). Various reviews have been published providing an overview of these plastic degrading microorganisms ( Pathak and Navneet, 2017 ; Roohi et al, 2017 ; Rana, 2019 ; Jaiswal et al, 2020 ; Mohanan et al, 2020 ; Maity et al, 2021 ; Priya et al, 2022 ). Due to the abundance of plastic degrading micro-organisms isolated from plastic polluted environments, plastic debris is considered a promising source for the isolation of potentially successful plastic degrading bacteria and fungi.…”

Bioconversion of Plastic Waste Based on Mass Full Carbon Backbone Polymeric Materials to Value-Added Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs)

“…The future of microbial research in this area is likely to progress further in the direction of the genetic engineering of native species. A marine bacterium was transformed into a hydrocarbon degrader through the transfer of genes from the hydrocarbon degrader P. putida [ 32 ]. Similar, carefully monitored, genetic engineering approaches (such as Zinc finger proteins, TALENs, and the CRISPR/Cas9) could be applied to unify the functions of genes and enzymes that allow plastic degradation and bioremediation [ 32 ].…”

“…PP is cheap and strong, yet lightweight; however, its stability makes natural biological degradation difficult. As a result of this, PP production creates a large carbon footprint, and, because of the very short lifespan of packaging materials, most PP finds its way into landfill sites [ 32 , 33 ]. The microbial breakdown of PP was first assessed in 1993 using strains originating from sandy soils that contained waste PE with an incubation period of 175 days [ 9 ].…”

Microbial enzymes for green energy and clean environment

“…Additionally, in this special issue, the degradation and conversion of various emerging pollutants, including polyaromatic hydrocarbons, poly (ε-caprolactone), 5-hydroxymethyl furfural, plastic, polyesters, using microbes and enzymes have been well described. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] In addition to this various biomass, biopolymers including lignin, cellulose, and municipal-, industrial-, and agricultural-based pollutants were documented to convert into valuable products using enzymatic pathways. [13][14][15][16] The cutting-edge technologies of protein engineering and directed evolution have already minimized the cost of enzymatic transformation processes with higher product yield.…”