Plastic-degrading potential across the global microbiome correlates with recent pollution trends

Jan Zrimec (Author), Mariia Kokina (Author), Sara Jonasson (Author), Aleksej Zelezniak (Author), Francisco Zorrilla (Author)

Abstract

Biodegradation is a plausible route toward sustainable management of the millions of tons of plastic waste that have accumulated in terrestrial and marine environments. However, the global diversity of plastic-degrading enzymes remains poorly understood. Taking advantage of global environmental DNA sampling projects, here we constructed hidden Markov models from experimentally verified enzymes and mined ocean and soil metagenomes to assess the global potential of microorganisms to degrade plastics. By controlling for false positives using gut microbiome data, we compiled a catalogue of over 30,000 nonredundant enzyme homologues with the potential to degrade 10 different plastic types. While differences between the ocean and soil microbiomes likely reflect the base compositions of these environments, we find that ocean enzyme abundance increases with depth as a response to plastic pollution and not merely taxonomic composition. By obtaining further pollution measurements, we observed that the abundance of the uncovered enzymes in both ocean and soil habitats significantly correlates with marine and country-specific plastic pollution trends. Our study thus uncovers the earth microbiome's potential to degrade plastics, providing evidence of a measurable effect of plastic pollution on the global microbial ecology as well as a useful resource for further applied research.

Keywords

bioinformatika;okoljska mikrobiologija;mikrobna ekologija;onesnaženje s plastiko;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2021
Typology:	1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization:	NIB - National Institute of Biology
UDC:	579
COBISS:	95090435
ISSN:	2150-7511
Views:	23
Downloads:	14
Average score:	0 (0 votes)
Metadata:

Other data

Secondary language:	Slovenian
Secondary keywords:	bioinformatika;okoljska mikrobiologija;mikrobna ekologija;onesnaženje s plastiko;
Source comment:	Nasl. z nasl. zaslona; Opis vira z dne 26. 1. 2022; Sodelavci: Mariia Kokina, Sara Jonasson, Francisco Zorrilla, Aleksej Zelezniaka;
Pages:	str. 1-15
Volume:	ǂVol. ǂ12
Issue:	ǂiss. ǂ5
Chronology:	26. Oct. 2021
DOI:	10.1128/mBio.02155-21
ID:	24555989