Recent MIX-UP publication!

Check out the new MIX-UP publication "Fusion of Chitin-Binding Domain From Chitinolyticbacter meiyuanensis SYBC-H1 to the Leaf-Branch Compost Cutinase for Enhanced PET Hydrolysis" published in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. Congratulations to our partners Rui Xue, Yinping Chen, Huan Rong, Ren Wei, Zhongli Cui, Jie Zhou, Weiliang Dong and Min Jiang to the success!

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a mass-produced petroleum-based non-biodegradable plastic that contributes to the global plastic pollution. Recently, biocatalytic degradation has emerged as a viable recycling approach for PET waste, especially with thermophilic polyester hydrolases such as a cutinase (LCC) isolated from a leaf-branch compost metagenome and its variants. To improve the enzymatic PET hydrolysis performance, we fused a chitin-binding domain (ChBD) from Chitinolyticbacter meiyuanensis SYBC-H1 to the C-terminus of the previously reported LCCICCG variant, demonstrating higher adsorption to PET substrates and, as a result, improved degradation performance by up to 19.6% compared to with its precursor enzyme without the binding module. For compare hydrolysis with different binding module, the catalytic activity of LCCICCG-ChBD, LCCICCG-CBM, LCCICCG-PBM and LCCICCG-HFB4 were further investigated with PET substrates of various crystallinity and it showed measurable activity on high crystalline PET with 40% crystallinity. These results indicated that fusing a polymer-binding module to LCCICCG is a promising method stimulating the enzymatic hydrolysis of PET.

 

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