Discovery of plastic-degrading microbial strains isolated from the alpine and Arctic terrestrial plastisphere ...

• Main Authors: Rüthi, Joel, Cerri, Mattia, Brunner, Ivano, Stierli, Beat, Sander, Michael, Frey, Beat
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: ETH Zurich 2023
• Subjects: alpine; Arctic; biodegradable plastic; cold-adapted microorganism; microbial strain; plastic degradation
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000618163; http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/618163

Increasing plastic production and the release of some plastic in to the environment highlight the need for circular plastic economy. Microorganisms have a great potential to enable a more sustainable plastic economy by biodegradation and enzymatic recycling of polymers. Temperature is a crucial parameter affecting biodegradation rates, but so far microbial plastic degradation has mostly been studied at temperatures above 20 degrees C. Here, we isolated 34 cold-adapted microbial strains from the plastisphere using plastics buried in alpine and Arctic soils during laboratory incubations as well as plastics collected directly from Arctic terrestrial environments. We tested their ability to degrade, at 15 degrees C, conventional polyethylene (PE) and the biodegradable plastics polyester-polyurethane (PUR; Impranil((R))); ecovio((R)) and BI-OPL, two commercial plastic films made of polybutylene adipate-co-terephthalate (PBAT) and polylactic acid (PLA); pure PBAT; and pure PLA. Agar clearing tests indicated that ... : Frontiers in Microbiology, 14 ...