Efficient and complete biodegradation of Poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) by a novel dual-member bacterial consortium from compost: Metabolic division of labor between BDP053 and BDT04.

Poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) has been widely used, but its natural degradation is sluggish and microbes degrading PBAT efficiently are still limited. Herein, two novel bacteria BDP053 and BDT04 were isolated from compost and formed a PBAT-degrading consortium through metabolic complementation. They represent novel genus and species in families Steroidobacteraceae and Alcaligenaceae, respectively. Strain BDP053 can degrade 2 g/L PBAT with a weight loss over 99.1 % within 110 h at 50 ℃. It assimilated adipic acid, 1, 4-butanediol and was proposed to transform mono (4-hydroxybutyl) terephthalate via two newly reported possible oxidative intermediate metabolites in 210 h into terephthalic acid, which was assimilated by BDT04 within 24 h. The metabolic pathways of the monomers are exist in their genomes. This consortium degrade three commercial PBATs completely in 9 days. Particularly, PBAT with aromatic components > 50 mol% was firstly reported to degrade in 16 days. The intermediates had no significant effect on seed germination rate and plant morphology in Arabidopsis thaliana. The consortium maintained good biodegradability to PBAT and composites PBAT-PLA/PHA at mesophilic temperatures. The consortium is competitive in polymicrobial composting microcosms and can be applied at home or industrial composting to accelerate PBAT-based waste materials' degradation.