Part 32
Article: Biotechnology My Blog Title: The world, from the past to the present, retold from the timelines.
2023: [9.16] Notable innovations: a genetically engineered marine microorganism for breaking down PET in salt water. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) was a type of plastic used to make bottles, food packaging and clothes. Much PET plastic waste did not get recycled, and ended up in landfills and aquatic environments. It was eventually broken down into microplastics particles with a size of less than 5 mm, which were challenging to collect and had been shown to move quickly between aquatic, terrestrial, and atmospheric environments, the researchers pointed out in the paper. Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) was a highly recyclable plastic that had been extensively used and manufactured. Like other plastics, PET resisted natural degradation, thus accumulating in the environment. Several recycling strategies had been applied to PET, but these tended to result in downcycled products that eventually ended up in landfills. Downcycling, or cascading, is the recycling of waste where the recycled material is of lower quality and functionality than the original material. This accumulation of landfilled PET waste contributed to the formation of microplastics, which posed a serious threat to marine life and ecosystems, and potentially to human health. Some microbes had been found to have the ability to break down plastic. Researchers had genetically engineered bacteria, or even just the enzymes they produce, to convert plastic waste into valuable chemicals. A key limitation with these previously modified organisms was that “their growth was inhibited by high concentrations of salt,” the North Carolina State University (NCSU) team wrote. That meant microplastics would have to be collected and washed off using large quantities of water before they could be broken down. So the researchers took a different approach, harnessing two different species of bacteria. The first, Vibrio natriegens, lives in saltwater and reproduces very quickly, doubling in number in under 10 minutes in ideal conditions. The second bacteria, Ideonella sakaiensis, produces enzymes that can deconstruct PET. There was still significant work to be done, the researchers said. They now planned to modify V. natriegens so that it could feed on the byproducts it creates when it breaks apart PET, and so it can produce useful chemical molecules in the end. Previously, scientists from the Kovalevsky Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas found that a single-celled organism, the heterotrophic dinoflagellate Oxyrrhis marina, could not tell microplastic particles from its usual food, the cells of Isochrysis galbana microalgae. Isochrysis galbana is an outstanding food for various bivalve larvae and is now widely cultured for use in the bivalve aquaculture industry. Common bivalves include clams, oysters, cockles, mussels, scallops, and numerous other families that live in saltwater, as well as a number of families that live in freshwater. Larva is the singular form of the word, and larvae is the plural form. Fertilized eggs normally develop into the first larval stage, the trocophore, 10 to 12 hours after fertilization. After another 12 hours they become well-formed straight-hinge veligers with a bivalve shell and a swimming organ called the velum. Isochrysis galbana is a unicellular haptophyte or planktonic organisms with an ellipsoid shape. Cells measure 5 to 6 micrometers long, 2 to 4 micrometers wide, and 2.5 to 3 micrometers thick. They lack a rigid cell wall, and are encapsulated by plasma membranes. Each cell possesses two flagella around 7 micrometers long. The heterotrophic dinoflagellate, Oxyrrhis marina (15 to 40 micrometers), is the most frequently used marine protist predator in laboratory-based feeding experiments. Since the initial observations of Kent (1880), Barker (1935), and Droop (1953), O. marina has been employed extensively in feeding experiments due to its ease of culture, wide distribution, and tolerance to a range of environmental conditions (Lowe et al., 2011b). Although it is not typically found in open waters (Watts et al., 2011), O. marina is both a raptorial feeder that capture and consume prey actively and intercept feeder and is, therefore, representative in its feeding behavior of many planktonic protists. Protists are simple eukaryotic organisms that are neither plants nor animals or fungi. Protists are unicellular in nature. Researchers came to this conclusion based on an experiment, in which Oxyrrhis marina was offered three diet options: Isochrysis galbana microalgae, microplastics or a mixture of both. The experiment showed that Oxyrrhis marina ate microplastics even in the presence of microalgae. Researchers from North Carolina State University (NCSU) had genetically engineered a marine microorganisms from Vibrio natriegens and Ideonella sakaiensis, to break down plastic in salt water. Specifically, the modified organism could break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a plastic used in everything from water bottles to clothing that is a significant contributor to microplastic pollution in oceans. The work was done with support from the National Science Foundation. An open-access paper on their work was published in the AIChE Journal.
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Music Sources and Titles: Pixabay
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Picture sources: Peakpx.com and Pexels, Pixabay in PowerDirector and other websites:
1:https://cdn.technologynetworks.com/tn/images/body/picture-by-y-zhang1617788718746.jpg
2:https://www.isaaa.org/kc/cropbiotechupdate/files/images/920202374050AM.jpg
3:https://whitewaternow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/PET-Bottles.jpg
4:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653523033465
6:https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S2352801X22001667-gr2.jpg
7:https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0048969720328138-ga1_lrg.jpg
11:https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S2666016424000677-gr4_lrg.jpg
12:https://nachrichten.idw-online.de/2017/12/11/cascading-use-is-also-beneficial-for-wood
13:https://sobretudo34.design.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/dgd.jpg?w=800
14:https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/sustainability/images/recyling-downcycling.jpg
18:https://www.mdpi.com/genes/genes-14-01437/article_deploy/html/images/genes-14-01437-g004.png
19:https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/2023/genetically-modified-b.jpg
20:https://microbenotes.com/ideonella-sakaiensis-plastic-eating-bacteria/
24:https://www.ccap.ac.uk/catalogue/strain-927-20
26:https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0048969724036854-ga1_lrg.jpg
27:https://animalfact.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Bivalves-Bivalvia.jpg
30:https://res.cloudinary.com/hksqkdlah/image/upload/32763_sfs-grilled-clams-mussels-or-oysters-084.jpg
31:https://vinsullivan.com/image/cache/data/Products/fish/cockles-jar-600x600.jpg
33:https://www.simplywhisked.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Beer-Mussels-2.jpg
35:https://asianinspirations.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/R02462_Grilled_Scallops.jpg
36:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scallop#/media/File%3AArgopecten_irradians.jpg
39:https://www.mdpi.com/animals/animals-12-02192/article_deploy/html/images/animals-12-02192-g004.png
42:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/a36a3ca3-fa0c-4996-b88a-9b80e1abd958/jeu_336_f3.jpg
43:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/023842d7-708a-4c2d-9142-bbfb21d45f5b/jeu_336_f1.jpg
44:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/1efb4886-563a-4062-ac19-f9feebd76301/jeu_336_f4.jpg
47:https://zeiss-campus.magnet.fsu.edu/articles/basics/images/historicalfigure1.jpg
48:https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0932473916300189-gr5_lrg.jpg
50:https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/800xn/p0hz3437.jpg.webp
53:https://30a.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Plankton-Bioluminescence-768x515.jpg
55:https://www.madrimasd.org/blogs/universo/wp-content/blogs.dir/42/files/163/protistas-del-suelo.jpg
Video Sources: Pexels and Pixabay in PowerDirector and other websites:
73:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/306676944-strong-wind-blowing-sand-beach-next-boardwalk
74:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/142861502-dust-storm-desert-afghanistan
77:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/68797464-supercell-dust-storm
78:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/278505035-sand-storm-desert-dust-storm-street-city
81:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/105257367-synthetic-bacteria-releasing-products
82:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/45294637-bacteria-under-microscope
84:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/148135118-floating-washing-tank-pet
85:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/178570182-bacteria-multiplying-animation
86:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/71768888-antique-clock-time-lapse-counting-down-ten-minutes
87:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/232967611-waste-eating-bacteria-3d-animation-render
88:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/105253935-synthetic-bacteria-communicating
90:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/106996194-single-celled-green-algae-seen-optical-microscope
91:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/172071744-selective-focus-underwater-micro-plastic
92:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/136319539-microorgansim-attacking-prey
98:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/212264163-mussel-farm-agon-coutainville-normandy-france
101:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/249311711-aerial-view-oyster-farm-sea
103:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/219418070-ostracods-feeding-along-strands-freshwater-algae
104:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/88535271-plankton-under-water-daphnia-moyna
105:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/88531770-plankton-under-water-daphnia-moyna
106:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/101863705-plankton-under-water-daphnia-moyna
108:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/44926190-underwater-view-ocean-thick-plankton
111:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/94770716-plankton-bloom-aerial-4k
115:https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/172300393-micro-organisms-algae-and-ciliates-floating-water
Consulted References:
Refer to Part 3 for all consolidated references for all parts.
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