Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Enzymatic degradation of plastics is a sustainable approach to addressing the growing issue of plastic accumulation. The primary challenges for using enzymes as catalysts are issues with their stability and recyclability, further exacerbated by their costly production and delicate structures. Here, we demonstrate an approach that leverages engineered spores that display target enzymes in high density on their surface to catalyze aliphatic polyester degradation and create self-degradable materials. Engineered spores display recombinant enzymes on their surface, eliminating the need for costly purification processes. The intrinsic physical and biological characteristics of spores enable easy separation from the reaction mixture, repeated reuse, and renewal. Engineered spores displaying lipases completely degrade aliphatic polyesters and retain activity through four cycles, with full activity recovered through germination and sporulation. Directly incorporating spores into polyesters results in robust materials that are completely degradable. Our study offers a straightforward and sustainable biocatalytic approach to plastic degradation.
Source: Biomacromolecules
Authors: Ziyu Cui, Masamu Kawada, Yue Hui, Seunghyun Sim
Institution: University of California, Irvine
Language: English
Subfield: Biomaterials
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4407881122