From the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, came the latest information, a dedicated hydrolysis of PET plastic hydrolysis of important breakthroughs made in the future will be based on the development of a special 'eat' PET plastic new enzyme species, through biodegradation methods Helping to solve the increasingly serious problem of plastic garbage pollution.The results of this research have been published in the latest issue of "Nature Communications" magazine.
PET full name of 'polyethylene terephthalate' is a common chemical materials based on petroleum as raw materials, widely used in the production of food containers and electronic products, PET plastic accounts for 18% of the total amount of polymer in the world, abandoned in nature Very difficult to degrade, is an important source of white pollution.For a long time the scientific community has been looking for effective methods of PET biodegradation.Recently, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology researcher led by GUO Ruiting structural biology and protease research team using X-ray Crystallography technology, the successful resolution of the new high-resolution structure of PET hydrolase, at the same time, the team was the first time in the country obtained the PET hydrolase and its substrate analog composite structure.Scientists through the overall protein structure comparison found, The PET hydrolase is very similar to the other previously reported PET-degrading enzymes, except that the two structural features of the active region are different.This study is of great guiding significance for the study of PET hydrolase even for enzymology, and elucidates the degradation of PET hydrolase Mechanism to understand the process of biodegradation of PET plastics to speed up the development and utilization of degraded PET new enzyme, as soon as possible PET hydrolase enzyme Industrialization is of great importance.
At present, Guo Ruiting's research team is using the obtained structural information to expedite rational design and directional evolutionary modification of PET hydrolases in order to breed a new enzyme specifically degrading PET plastic so as to realize harmless biodegradation of PET plastic as soon as possible.