Abstract
Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is a major source of plastic pollution. Biodegradation technologies are of paramount interest in reducing or recycling PET waste. In particular, a synergistic microbe-enzyme treatment may prove to be a promising approach. In this study, a synergistic system composed of Microbacterium oleivorans JWG-G2 and Thermobifida fusca cutinase (referred to as TfC) was employed to degrade bis(hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET) oligomers and a high crystalline PET film. A novel degradation product that was obtained by M. oleivorans JWG-G2 treatment alone was identified as ethylene glycol terephthalate (EGT). With the addition of TfC as a second biocatalyst, the highest synergy degrees for BHET oligomers and PET film degradation were 2.79 and 2.26, respectively. The largest amounts of terephthalic acid (TPA) and mono(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (MHET) (47 nM and 330 nM, respectively) were detected after combined treatment of PET film with M. oleivorans JWG-G2 at 5 × 103 μL/cm2 and TfC at 120 μg/cm2, and the degree of PET film surface destruction was more significant than those produced by each treatment alone. The presence of extracellular PET hydrolases in M. oleivorans JWG-G2, including three carboxylesterases, an esterase and a lipase, was predicted by whole genome sequencing analysis, and a predicted PET degradation pathway was proposed for the synergistic microbe-enzyme treatment. The results indicated that synergistic microbe-enzyme treatment may serve as a potentially promising tool for the future development of effective PET degradation.
Key points
• An ecofriendly synergistic microbe-enzyme PET degradation system operating at room temperature was first introduced for degrading PET.
• A novel product (EGT) was first identified during PET degradation.
• Potential PET hydrolases in M. oleivorans JWG-G2 were predicted by whole genome sequencing analysis.
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Data availability
Whole genome sequence of M. oleivorans JWG-G2 has been submitted to NCBI (SRX8594642). M. oleivorans JWG-G2 has been deposited in China Center for Type Culture Collection (CCTCC M2019416). Other data and materials are available from the corresponding author.
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All authors have contributed to the manuscript. ZFY: data curation, writing-original draft. LW: data curation. WX: data curation. ZZL: writing-review & editing. LTG: data curation. JW: conceptualization, writing-original draft. All authors revised and approved the final manuscript.
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This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFA0706900) and Jiangsu Provincial Science and Technology Department Policy Guidance Program-International Cooperation Projects-Innovation cooperation project of “B&R” (No. BZ2020010).
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Yan, ZF., Wang, L., Xia, W. et al. Synergistic biodegradation of poly(ethylene terephthalate) using Microbacterium oleivorans and Thermobifida fusca cutinase. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 105, 4551–4560 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-020-11067-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-020-11067-z