Environmental Identification of Novel Enzymes for Polyurethane and Polyamide Degradation
Abstract
ABSTRACT Better enzymes are needed to develop sustainable methods to recycle plastics with C‐X heterobonds such as polyurethane (PUR) and nylon, for which no industrial‐scale solutions exist. Current methods rely largely on sequence mining based on a small number of known enzymes. Here, we expand the pool of PURases and nylonases by bioprospecting legacy plastic waste with fluorophore plastic mimics combined with fluorescence‐assisted cell sorting (FACS). We identify 29 plastic‐degrading bacteria, from which 12 enzymes are identified by mass spectrometry and homology searches. Compared to existing enzymes, these enzymes show higher thermostability and hydrolytic activities against different high‐molecular weight PUR polymers and nylon textiles compared to previously described wildtype enzymes. To our knowledge, this is the first reported example of enzymes capable of hydrolyzing longer chains of untreated PUR and nylon as well as crosslinked PUR. This study significantly increases the number of known PURases and nylonases and provides starting points for optimization campaigns through protein engineering and for in silico discovery.
Article Details
Authors (18)
Malthe Kjær Bendtsen
EnZync Center for Enzymatic Deconstruction of Thermoset Plastics Aarhus Denmark
Andreas Møllebjerg
EnZync Center for Enzymatic Deconstruction of Thermoset Plastics Aarhus Denmark
Samuel Peña‐Díaz
EnZync Center for Enzymatic Deconstruction of Thermoset Plastics Aarhus Denmark
Rosie Graham
EnZync Center for Enzymatic Deconstruction of Thermoset Plastics Aarhus Denmark
Nicolai Claus Petersen
EnZync Center for Enzymatic Deconstruction of Thermoset Plastics Aarhus Denmark
Bjørk Nolsøe Isaksen
EnZync Center for Enzymatic Deconstruction of Thermoset Plastics Aarhus Denmark
Mathias Carstensen
EnZync Center for Enzymatic Deconstruction of Thermoset Plastics Aarhus Denmark
Martin B. Johansen
EnZync Center for Enzymatic Deconstruction of Thermoset Plastics Aarhus Denmark
Andreas Sommerfeldt
EnZync Center for Enzymatic Deconstruction of Thermoset Plastics Aarhus Denmark
Allan R. Petersen
EnZync Center for Enzymatic Deconstruction of Thermoset Plastics Aarhus Denmark
Iddi Khamisi Chuma
Department of Biological Sciences Pwani University Kilifi Kenya
Cecilie Ryberg
Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO) Aarhus University Aarhus Denmark
Thomas Rea Wittenborn
The FACS Core Facility, Aarhus University Aarhus Denmark
Virginia Gichuru
Huabing Wang
Carsten Scavenius
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics Aarhus University Aarhus Denmark
Alexander Sandahl
EnZync Center for Enzymatic Deconstruction of Thermoset Plastics Aarhus Denmark
Daniel E. Otzen