Bioengineering of microbial systems to remediate plastic pollutants

塑料垃圾在世界范围内已达到流行病的程度。在加拿大，大约90%的塑料最终进入垃圾填埋场或环境，包括湖泊和海洋。塑料垃圾在环境中的不断积累对生态系统产生了许多不利影响。此外，微塑料在水生环境中的有害影响及其对加拿大渔业在人类健康和经济损失方面的毒理学影响已得到充分记录。最近的文献表明，某些微生物能够生物降解塑料成分。然而，微生物塑料的生物降解仍然相当缓慢，并且对于工业规模的生物修复用途来说是不可持续的。因此，该合作伙伴关系的总体目标是生物工程能够强大的塑料生物修复作为一种新的解决方案，用于塑料废物的管理微生物菌株。特别是，该伙伴关系旨在利用现代分子工具来表征微生物降解和净化塑料成分的天然能力的分子途径。在这项研究中，将评估增强这些自然发生的塑料降解分子途径的方法，以开发基于微生物的塑料废物管理解决方案。因此，NSERC联盟资助的目标是开发两种新型的基于微生物的塑料废物管理解决方案：（1）定制营养补充剂，以选择性地促进微生物塑料代谢，以及（2）具有上级塑料降解特性的微生物菌株的基因工程。这项研究将为生物技术过程奠定基础，为应对环境塑料废物污染提供清洁，具有成本效益和可持续的生物修复策略。

Plastic waste has reached epidemic proportions worldwide. In Canada, approximately 90 per cent of the plastic ends up in landfills or the environment, including the lakes and oceans. The increasing accumulation of plastic waste in the environment has had numerous detrimental impacts on the ecosystem. Moreover, the detrimental effects of microplastics in aquatic environments and their toxicological implications for the Canadian fishing industry in terms of human health and financial loss have been well documented. Recent literature suggests that certain microbes are capable of biodegrading plastic constituents. However, microbial plastic biodegradation is still quite slow, and not sustainable for industrial-scale bioremediation usage. Therefore, the overall goal of this partnership is to bioengineer microbial strains capable of robust plastic bioremediation as a novel solution for the management of plastic waste. In particular, this partnership aims to utilize modern molecular tools to characterize the molecular pathways underlying the natural ability of microbes to degrade and decontaminate plastic constituents. In this study, methods to augment these naturally-occurring plastic degradation molecular pathways will be assessed to develop microbial-based solutions for plastic waste management. Therefore, the goals of this specific NSERC Alliance grant is to develop two novel microbial-based solutions for plastic waste management: (1) a custom-tailored nutrient supplementation to selectively promote microbial plastic metabolism, and (2) the genetic engineering of microbial strains with superior plastic degradation characteristics. This study will lay the foundation for biotechnological processes that will provide a clean, cost-effective, and sustainable bioremediation strategy to combat environmental plastic waste pollution.