A New PETase from the Human Saliva Metagenome and Its Functional Modification via Genetic Code Expansion in Bacteria

The discovery and engineering of new plastic degrading enzymes is an important challenge in chemical biotechnology to enable transition a more sustainable circular plastics economy. This field has so far yielded range microbial pathways for the recycling valorization waste. New research from Uttamapinant et al. reports novel polyethylene terephthalate (PET) hydrolase human saliva metagenome that displays improved properties catalytic performance over previously characterized PET hydrolases (PETases). authors also demonstrate site-specific incorporation photocaged unnatural amino acid, 2,3-diaminopropionic acid (DAP), which upon photodecaging enables covalent binding DAP surface. Thus, this work highlights metagenomic datasets as untapped source modification PETases via genetic code expansion, enabling biotechnologies