Yale Discovers Fungus That Eats Plastic

[Range_This11]

Plastic is possibly the greatest commercial creation of last 150 years. It's made it into tupperware, saran wrap, toys, car parts, computer parts, smartphones, and shopping bag all over the world. The only problem is that polyurethane is not biodegradable, and recycling plastic can be equated to just turning it into another product, so all that plastic already in landfills will stay there for centuries to come.

 

Scientists have not found a single way to break down polyurethane--luckily, nature has found a way on its own. Yale scientists recently found a fungus in the Amazonian rainforest that naturally eats polyurethane.

 

This is the first fungus species, identified by the Yale researchers as Pestalotiopsis microspore, which exclusively subsists on polyurethane. It can also grow in an anaerobic (air-less) environment, which will hopefully allow it to take root in the deepest regions of our trash heaps.

 

Jonathan Russell, a Yale scientists of the group, has managed to isolated an enzyme the fungus uses decompose plastic. The scientists hope to use the extracted chemical to eliminate plastic trash and to help in bioremediation projects.

 

Source

 

This is some very exciting news for the planet if it is indeed successful!

[Randox]

This is great news indeed. Plastics are one of the least degradable materials we have ever created, right up there with concrete. A way to get rid of the stuff is great, though I do hope its not transforming it into something too terrible, since there is no shortage of the stuff to transform.

 

And another victory for Nature. If it subsists purely on a specific type of plastic, it must be a fairly recently developed life form, since polyurethane does not occur naturally (unless I'm really missing something?).

 

Very cool.

[Dudecrush8]

It is indeed very exciting news. Now we just have to make sure it does that and only that. Humans have a long history of moving creatures around and disrupting ecosystems. So if this works, I'm super excited. But lets be absolutely certain it works exactly as intended before we start using it everywhere.

[i_love_burritos]

Been known for a while that PURis vulnerable to catalytic degrade, the paper mentions a specific type of serine hydrolases (i'll get some pics) which act on it. Stuff like PVC, olefins and polyethylenes are harder. I imagine due to a different group. checked wikipedia and It's an isocyanate/hydroxyl group that PUR has. This is cool but eh. The enzyme excreted by the fungi (Pestalotiopsis microspora ) (this is what the paper says, excreted specifically seeing as it is using as a carbon source and when they did it in the plate the PUR started degrading quite a way off from where they had intially cultured it). But yeah. So what the scientists did (they did a bunch of stuff it's a long ass paper and keep in mind I dont understand half of this shit, seeing as I'm a lowly student so someone feel free to correct me) [i'll add more here soon, still reading].

 

of interest

 

 

^ third picture second paragraph. They first tested a bunch of these microbes, found that this particular species was especially good at breaking down polyurethane given the correct conditions (they did both aerobic and anaerobic tests) in various cultures and plates. To test if it was that serine hydrolase that was breakingt the N-ester linkage (??) they added ____. Did various photospec (aside from the UV-vis) and IR absorptions to see how much of the PUR had been degraded and what breakdown compounds were produced (again through IR absorption).

 

Second part they actually characterized the fungi's ability both to produce the enzyme and the enzyme's function itself. So for the first one they added some compound that would affect the microbe's ability to make this class of serine hydrolase and secondly added another compound (two different ones) that would [bleep] up the ability of the enzyme to act on the PUR (in layspeak). They did a bunch of other shit too, still reading (they tested about a dozen different microbes blah).

 

as said below, likely nothing will come of it.

[Kimberly]

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/boy-discovers-microbe-that-eats-plastic

 

Old. Nothing came of it. Nothing will come of this one either because it's cheaper to do what we're currently doing.

[obfuscator]

Yes, of course. The downfall of any innovation...it must be economically feasible. If you can't profit off it, it won't go anywhere.

[Range_This11]

Sounds like something the government could fund, but I doubt that would go over so well in this political environment.