Article via https://www.eurekalert.org
Finding, cultivating, and bioengineering organisms that can digest plastic not only aids in the removal of pollution, but is now also big business.
But there is a possible solution to this problem: finding specialist cold-adapted microbes whose enzymes work at lower temperatures.
The best performers were two uncharacterized fungal species in the genera Neodevriesia and Lachnellula: these were able to digest all of the tested plastics except PE.
Side-effect of ability to digest plant polymersHow did the ability to digest plastic evolve?
“But we know that most of the tested strains can grow well between 4°C and 20°C with an optimum at around 15°C,” said Frey.