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Unveiling marine plastic degraders through DNA-stable isotope probing
Summary
Researchers used DNA-stable isotope probing (DNA-SIP) with 13C-labeled polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) to identify, for the first time, the specific marine bacteria responsible for plastic biodegradation, pinpointing key degraders including Marinobacter sp., Cellvibrionaceae, and several other genera over a 90-day incubation period.
Plastic biodegradation in natural environments is performed by the microbial biofilm living on its surface. This study identifies for the first time plastic degraders in marine environment, by using stable isotope tracers. Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) biodegradation was proved by monitoring microbial cell growth (via scanning electron microscopy and flow cytometry) and activities (via continuous oxygen consumption measurements and 3H-leucine incorporation for protein synthesis) during 90 days. We successfully synthetized 13C-labeled PHB and conducted DNA-stable isotope probing (DNA-SIP) experiments over different time points, which permitted the first description of key PHB degraders belonging to Marinobacter sp. and Cellvibrionaceae together with Glaciecola sp., Pseudoalteromonas sp., Celeribacter sp. and Alteromonas sp. Overall, SIP labeling combined with metabarcoding proved to be a useful tool for discovering and characterizing active plastic degraders from complex marine communities.