Thermofibida fusca

In 1977, Tokiwa and Suzuki reported that some lipases, which are extracellular enzymes that usually cleave esters in oils and fats, are also able to attack ester bonds in some aliphatic polyesters and can depolymerize such materials [38]. Aliphatic polyesters, however, exhibit only limited useful properties for many applications. Aromatic polyesters, such as PET and PBT, which are widely applied because of their excellent properties, are not attacked by hydrolytic enzymes. This led to the development of aliphatic-aromatic polyesters as biodegradable plastics that present a compromise between biodegradability and material properties [39]. Recently, however, Muller et al. [40] have isolated a hydrolase (TfH) from Thermofibida fusca which is able to depolymerize the aromatic polyester PET at a high rate in contrast to other hydrolases such as lipases. They have demonstrated for the first time that commercial PET can be effectively hydrolyzed by an enzyme at a rate that does not exclude a biological recycling of PET. The effective depolymerization of PET with the enzyme TfH will result in water... 

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See also in sourсe #XX -- [ , , , , , , , , , , ]

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