Assessment Of Plastic Degrading Abilities Of Autotransporter Domains Containing Esterase On Synthetic Polyesters

Abstract: In today's world, plastic pollution has become a widespread problem with plastics in oceans, rivers and forests. The use of plastic has increased rapidly since it first was developed and that is because of its advantageous abilities. This scientific report focuses on the evaluation of two enzymes known as "autotransporter domains containing esterase" for its ability to degrade a variety of plastics such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET). In this report the ability to degrade plastics with enzymes has been tested by introducing two different autotransporter domains containing esterase to different kinds of plastic and letting them react under different conditions to determine the plastic degrading abilities in the enzymes. The results indicated that both enzymes had an ability to degrade different plastics to some extent, but the extent of degradation varied depending on the experimental conditions. However, the results were not entirely conclusive as some of the results were contradictory. The biggest problem was replication of the results, this can be due to several issues such as no expression of enzyme, problem with the column and storage time of the enzyme. Despite the inconclusive results, the study provides valuable insights into the potential of this kind of enzyme for plastic degradation. It is suggested that further studies are needed to confirm the effectiveness of the enzymes. The study highlights the importance of continuing to explore biological solutions for plastic waste management and the challenges that come with developing new solutions in this field.