Advance in polyethylene terephthalate degrading enzyme

Abstract:

Polyethylene terephthalate is one of the most used synthetic polymers in industrial fields and daily life due to its excellent durability and plasticity. In the meantime, a large amount of PET waste has caused severe environmental problems, so that researchers are paying more and more attention to the degradability of PET waste. Among all of the methods of plastic degradation, the means of biodegradation is considered to be the most environmental-friendly treatment at present and it will be efficient for large-scale degradation of PET waste. Previous research has indicated that PET degrading enzymes mainly include lipases, esterases and cutinases, but they exhibit poor PET degradation activity. A new PETase discovered recently, which is isolated from Ideonella sakaiensis, has shown high efficacy and specificity to degradation of PET materials. Here, we summarize the progress on structural research of PET degrading enzymes and describe the catalytic mechanism of PETase, to help modify more effective PET degrading enzymes.