Polybutylene succinate (PBS) is an environmentally friendly plastic that degrades in terrestrial environments but has limited natural biodegradation in marine environments. Newly released research by a Japanese team shows that they have identified specific marine bacteria that can degrade PBS, contributing to the future development of polymers that can be more easily degraded in the marine environment.
Since the early 1990s, PBS has been increasingly used in industrial plastics such as mulch, compostable bags and restaurant packaging. This polymer ends up in the ocean along with many discarded plastics, but it does not biodegrade well in the marine environment.
Researchers at Hokkaido University and other institutions in Japan have analyzed the effects of microorganisms collected from natural seawater off the coast of Japan on PBS, and have found that three marine Vibrio species can degrade PBS.The paper has been published in the international journal Environmental Microbiology.
The researchers also found the enzyme that degrades PBS from these Vibrio bacteria and, using molecular biology techniques, implanted the gene for this enzyme into common E. coli bacteria and grew a highly purified version of the enzyme, which was used to explore, among other things, the enzyme's activity in degrading other polymers. The study elucidates the degradation mechanism in seawater at the molecular level, which could contribute to the future development of new polymers that are biodegradable by marine organisms, the researchers said.
