Department of Microbiology, School of Bioengineering and Biosciences, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India.
Department of Zoology, Khalsa College Amritsar, Punjab, India.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Jun 15;877:162912. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162912. Epub 2023 Mar 16.
Microplastics are widely distributed and a major pollutant in our ecosystem. Microplastics (MPs) are very small size plastic (<5 mm) present in environment, which comes from industrial, agricultural and household wastes. Plastic particles are more durable due to the presence of plasticizers and chemicals or additives. These plastics pollutants are more resistant to degradation. Inadequate recycling and excessive use of plastics lead to a large amount of waste accumulating in the terrestrial ecosystem, causing a risk to humans and animals. Thus, there is an urgent need to control microplastic pollution by employing different microorganisms to overcome this hazardous issue for the environment. Biological degradation depends upon different aspects, including chemical structure, functional group, molecular weight, crystallinity and additives. Molecular mechanisms for degradation of MPs through various enzymes have not extremely studied. It is necessary to degrade the MPs and overcome this problem. This review approaches different molecular mechanisms to degrade different types of microplastics and summarize the degradation efficiency of different types of bacteria, algae and fungal strains. The present study also summarizes the potential of microorganisms to degrade different polymers and the role of different enzymes in degradation of microplastics. To the outstanding of our awareness, this is the first article devoted to the role of microorganisms with their degradation efficiency. Furthermore, it also summarizes the role of intracellular and extracellular enzymes in biological degradation mechanism of microplastics.
微塑料广泛分布，是我们生态系统中的主要污染物之一。微塑料（MPs）是指环境中存在的非常小尺寸的塑料（<5 毫米），来源于工业、农业和家庭废物。由于增塑剂和化学物质或添加剂的存在，塑料颗粒更耐用。这些塑料污染物更难降解。由于塑料的回收利用不足和过度使用，大量废物在陆地生态系统中积累，对人类和动物构成了风险。因此，迫切需要通过利用不同的微生物来控制微塑料污染，以克服这一环境危害问题。生物降解取决于不同的方面，包括化学结构、官能团、分子量、结晶度和添加剂。通过各种酶降解 MPs 的分子机制尚未得到深入研究。有必要降解 MPs 并克服这个问题。本综述探讨了不同类型微塑料的不同分子降解机制，并总结了不同类型细菌、藻类和真菌菌株的降解效率。本研究还总结了微生物对不同聚合物的降解潜力以及不同酶在微塑料降解中的作用。据我们所知，这是第一篇专门讨论微生物及其降解效率的文章。此外，它还总结了细胞内和细胞外酶在微塑料生物降解机制中的作用。
