Engineered Microbe Producing Plastic | New Discovery


A few genetic modifications can induce a strain of soil bacteria to convert a renewable material, lignin, into plastics. The best part? Lignin is so cheap and plentiful we don’t even bother trying to use it right now.

Lignin is actually super abundant. It’s the second-most abundant type of aromatic compound (those ‘rings’ you see in organic chemistry) on the planet after petroleum, the team explains. However, isn’t very valuable right now. That’s actually an understatement. Lignin today is so cheap that paper mills — which have been in the business of stripping lignin from wood for centuries — can’t even bother trying to sell the stuff; they just dispose of it in huge boilers.

The bacteria in question is Novosphingobium aromaticivorans. It was first isolated in soils that were previously contaminated by petroleum products. And, in this environment where most other organisms find it hard to eek out a living, N. aromaticivorans was thriving. Its name aromaticivorans means ‘aromatic-eater’ as a nod to its unique adaptations.
Lignin is a large molecule that’s very difficult to break down into smaller pieces. But N. aromaticivorans already had a natural appetite for lignin-like products when discovered — in fact, it’s the only known organism so far that can digest many parts of the lignin molecule and excrete smaller aromatic compounds.

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