Human saliva may contain an enzyme which can decompose the plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Researchers found the promising enzyme, a hydrolase, in a database containing human metagenome samples. As they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, this newly discovered hydrolase performs better than many other known bacterial PET hydrolases. It can be produced using biotechnological methods and could be put to use in plastic recycling or for functionalizing plastics, the authors add.
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Source: Phys.org