Identification, expression, and biochemical characterization of plastic-degrading enzymes from extremophilic bacteria at the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridges (AMOR) deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

Project title

Identification, expression, and biochemical characterization of plastic-degrading enzymes from extremophilic bacteria at the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridges (AMOR) deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

Supervisors

Runar Stokke

Katharina Sass

Ida Hele Steen

Project description

The widespread occurrence of plastic pollution across the biosphere poses a significant challenge for humanity. The current global plastic lifecycle deviates from being circular, turning plastic production into an unsustainable practice. This has yielded a global output of 368 million metric tons (Mt) and is expected to double in the next two decades from 2022. This thesis project aims to employ a bioinformatics-assisted (meta)genome in silico enzyme mining from enrichment cultures collected from a hydrothermal vent in the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge (AMOR). Also, the project will explore structure-based prediction of potential putative enzymes toward depolymerization of plastic substrate. This will be complemented by the heterologous expression and protein expression of candidate putative enzymes in E. coli as the selected expression system. In further stages of the project, the candidate enzymes will be purified and isolated which will be used for assay-based experiments to confirm and verify enzymatic activity.