Searching for new plastic-degrading enzymes from the plastisphere of alpine soils using a metagenomic mining approach.

ABSTRACT: Plastic materials, including microplastics, accumulate in all types of ecosystems, even in remote and cold environments such as the European Alps. This pollution poses a risk for the environment and humans and needs to be addressed. Using shotgun DNA metagenomics of soils collected in the eastern Swiss Alps at about 3,000 m a.s.l., we identified genes and their proteins that potentially can degrade plastics. We screened the metagenomes of the plastisphere and the bulk soil with a differential abundance analysis, conducted similarity-based screening with specific databases dedicated to putative plastic-degrading genes, and selected those genes with a high probability of signal peptides for extracellular export and a high confidence for functional domains. This procedure resulted in a final

SUBMITTER: Frey B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10997104 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature