Dataset Information

Solving the plastic dilemma: the fungal and bacterial biodegradability of polyurethanes.

ABSTRACT: Polyurethane (PU) is a plastic polymer which, due to its various desirable characteristics, has been applied extensively in domestic, industrial and medical fields for the past 50 years. Subsequently, an increasing amount of PU waste is generated annually. PU, like many other plastics, is highly resistant to degradation and is a substantial threat to our environment. Currently PU wastes are handled through conventional disposal techniques such as landfill, incineration and recycling. Due to the many drawbacks of these techniques, a 'greener' alternative is necessary, and biodegradation appears to be the most promising option. Biodegradation has the potential to completely mineralise plastic waste or recover the input materials and better enable recycling. There are hurdles to overcome however, primarily the efficiency of the process and the presence of waste plastics with inherently different chemical structures. This review will focus on polyurethanes and their biodegradation, outlining the difficulty of degrading different versions of the same material and strategies for achieving more efficient biodegradation.

SUBMITTER: Bhavsar P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10020256 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Solving the plastic dilemma: the fungal and bacterial biodegradability of polyurethanes.

Bhavsar Parth P Bhave Mrinal M Webb Hayden K HK

World journal of microbiology & biotechnology 20230317 5

Polyurethane (PU) is a plastic polymer which, due to its various desirable characteristics, has been applied extensively in domestic, industrial and medical fields for the past 50 years. Subsequently, an increasing amount of PU waste is generated annually. PU, like many other plastics, is highly resistant to degradation and is a substantial threat to our environment. Currently PU wastes are handled through conventional disposal techniques such as landfill, incineration and recycling. Due to the ...[more]

PMID: 36929307

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundPlastic stents used for the treatment of biliary obstruction will become occluded over time due to microbial colonization and formation of biofilms. Treatment of stent-associated cholangitis is often not effective because of inappropriate use of antimicrobial agents or antimicrobial resistance. We aimed to assess the current bacterial and fungal etiology of stent-associated biofilms, with particular emphasis on antimicrobial resistance.MethodsPatients with biliary strictures requiring endoscopic stent placement were prospectively enrolled. After the retrieval of stents, biofilms were disrupted by sonication, microorganisms were cultured, and isolates were identified by matrix-associated laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry and/or biochemical typing. Finally, minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were determined for various antimicrobial agents. Selected stents were further analyzed by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH).ResultsAmong 120 patients (62.5% males, median age 64 years) with biliary strictures (35% malignant, 65% benign), 113 double pigtail polyurethane and 100 straight polyethylene stents were analyzed after a median indwelling time of 63 days (range, 1-1274 days). The stent occlusion rate was 11.5% and 13%, respectively, being associated with a significantly increased risk of cholangitis (38.5% vs. 9.1%, P<0.001). Ninety-five different bacterial and 13 fungal species were detected; polymicrobial colonization predominated (95.8% vs. 4.2%, P<0.001). Enterococci (79.3%), Enterobacteriaceae (73.7%), and Candida spp. (55.9%) were the leading pathogens. Candida species were more frequent in patients previously receiving prolonged antibiotic therapy (63% vs. 46.7%, P = 0.023). Vancomycin-resistant enterococci accounted for 13.7%, extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Enterobacteriaceae with co-resistance to ciprofloxacin accounted for 13.9%, and azole-resistant Candida spp. accounted for 32.9% of the respective isolates.ConclusionsEnterococci and Candida species play an important role in the microbial colonization of biliary stents. Therefore, empirical antimicrobial treatment of stent-associated cholangitis should be guided toward enterococci, Enterobacteriaceae, streptococci, anaerobes, and Candida. To determine causative pathogens, an accurate microbiological analysis of the extracted stent(s) may be helpful.

Project description:Concentrating cells from aqueous samples is a common requirement for the enumeration of biomass, investigations of microbial diversity and detection of relatively rare organisms in the environment. Accurately representing the initial sampled environments in the concentrated cells is of particular importance when the subsequent analyses have tangible environmental, economic and societal consequences, as is the case with environmental exposure and risk assessment of chemicals. This study investigated the potential use of four different cell concentration methods: centrifugation, membrane filtration, tangential flow filtration and column colonisation. These methods were assessed against a series of scientific and practical criteria, including: similarity of concentrated community to initial environmental sample; cell concentration achieved; biodegradation test outcome; sample throughput; and capital and maintenance costs. All methods increased cell concentration by as little as 10-fold to as much as 1000-fold. DGGE and 454 pyrosequencing analysis showed concentrated communities to have >60% similarity to each other, and the initial sample. There was a general trend for a more reliable assessment of 4-nitrophenol biodegradation in 96-well plate biodegradation assays, with increasing cell concentration. Based on the selection criteria, it is recommended that there is not one concentration method fit for all purposes, rather, the appropriate method should be selected on a case-by-case basis. Membrane filtration would be the most suitable method for low sample volumes; the increased throughput capacity of tangential flow filtration renders it most suitable for large volumes; and centrifugation is most suitable for samples with high initial biomass concentrations. The poor similarity in microbial community composition of the column colonised samples compared to the initial samples, suggested a concentration basis; this combined with its low sample throughput precluded this approach for future concentration studies of planktonic bacterial samples.

Project description:The rate, timing, and mode of species dispersal is recognized as a key driver of the structure and function of communities of macroorganisms, and may be one ecological process that determines the diversity of microbiomes. Many previous studies have quantified the modes and mechanisms of bacterial motility using monocultures of a few model bacterial species. But most microbes live in multispecies microbial communities, where direct interactions between microbes may inhibit or facilitate dispersal through a number of physical (e.g., hydrodynamic) and biological (e.g., chemotaxis) mechanisms, which remain largely unexplored. Using cheese rinds as a model microbiome, we demonstrate that physical networks created by filamentous fungi can impact the extent of small-scale bacterial dispersal and can shape the composition of microbiomes. From the cheese rind of Saint Nectaire, we serendipitously observed the bacterium Serratia proteamaculans actively spreads on networks formed by the fungus Mucor. By experimentally recreating these pairwise interactions in the lab, we show that Serratia spreads on actively growing and previously established fungal networks. The extent of symbiotic dispersal is dependent on the fungal network: diffuse and fast-growing Mucor networks provide the greatest dispersal facilitation of the Serratia species, while dense and slow-growing Penicillium networks provide limited dispersal facilitation. Fungal-mediated dispersal occurs in closely related Serratia species isolated from other environments, suggesting that this bacterial-fungal interaction is widespread in nature. Both RNA-seq and transposon mutagenesis point to specific molecular mechanisms that play key roles in this bacterial-fungal interaction, including chitin utilization and flagellin biosynthesis. By manipulating the presence and type of fungal networks in multispecies communities, we provide the first evidence that fungal networks shape the composition of bacterial communities, with Mucor networks shifting experimental bacterial communities to complete dominance by motile Proteobacteria. Collectively, our work demonstrates that these strong biophysical interactions between bacterial and fungi can have community-level consequences and may be operating in many other microbiomes.

Dataset Information

Solving the plastic dilemma: the fungal and bacterial biodegradability of polyurethanes.

Publications

Solving the plastic dilemma: the fungal and bacterial biodegradability of polyurethanes.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets