Bioremediation of Plastic Pollution

塑料污染的生物修复

• 批准号: 2098628
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Leicester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2098628
• 关键词: Bioremediation; Plastic; Pollution

Since the invention of synthetic plastics and subsequent wide spread adoption of single use plastics, the problem of plastic pollution has become endemic. Currently, 4.8 - 12.7 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans every year. A large subset of these plastics called microplastics are of great concern due to making their way into the food chain at all levels including humans. Recently microorganisms capable of degrading plastic components such as Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) have been identified in the environment and this capability has since be transferred to Escherichia coli. However, PETase (PET digesting enzyme) has yet to be transferred into yeast. Yeast such as S. cerevisiae has a natural ability to harsh industrial-scale conditions, naturally secretes biologically active proteins, and has been widely used for the synthesis of recombinant proteins with high titres. As such yeast holds the potential to be used as a PETase expression system to degrade microplastics in a number of industrial and environmental settings. This project will therefore look into genetically modifying S. cerevisiae to express, fold and secrete PETase. The project will investigate the activity of PETase in many different strain backgrounds and using quantitative trait loci and directed evolution to generate strains that maximise PETase activity while minimising toxicity. This will be done with the aim to create a strain of yeast suitable for the degradation of PET in microplastics in a variety of different settings.

自从合成塑料的发明以及随后一次性塑料的广泛采用以来，塑料污染问题已成为普遍现象。目前，每年有 4.8 - 1270 万吨塑料进入海洋。这些塑料中的一大部分被称为微塑料，由于它们进入了包括人类在内的各个层面的食物链，因此受到极大关注。最近在环境中发现了能够降解塑料成分（例如聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（PET））的微生物，并且这种能力已被转移到大肠杆菌中。然而，PETase（PET消化酶）尚未被转移到酵母中。酿酒酵母等酵母具有适应恶劣工业规模条件的天然能力，天然分泌生物活性蛋白，并已广泛用于高滴度重组蛋白的合成。因此，酵母有潜力用作 PETase 表达系统，在许多工业和环境环境中降解微塑料。因此，该项目将研究对酿酒酵母进行基因改造以表达、折叠和分泌 PETase。该项目将研究 PETase 在许多不同菌株背景中的活性，并利用数量性状基因座和定向进化来产生最大化 PETase 活性同时最小化毒性的菌株。这样做的目的是创造一种适合在各种不同环境下降解微塑料中 PET 的酵母菌株。