Degredo PETronum!
ABSTRACT
The usage of polyethylene terephthalate-PET (as like plastic bottles or textiles) is one of the big problems of our era. Many plastic bottles are not reusable and are not safe for hot liquids or for use in dishwashers or microwaves. Some tougher, reusable plastic bottles may cause cancer. The main disadvantage of plastic bottles is that so many of them end up in landfills instead of being recycled. It takes thousands of years for plastic bottles to biodegrade, and the degrading process emits toxic chemicals into the air.
We may alter the destiny of plastic in useful way.
Our Abstract in French!
Degrado PETronum
La présence de poly-téréphtalate d'éthylène (PET) dans le plastique, comme celui des bouteilles, est l’un des problèmes majeurs de notre époque. La plupart des bouteilles plastiques ne sont pas réutilisables. Et les plus robustes, réutilisables, pourraient être impliquées dans des cancers. Le principal inconvénient des bouteilles en plastique est que nombre d'entre elles finissent dans les décharges au lieu d'être recyclées. Il faut plusieurs centaines d’années pour que ces bouteilles se dégradent,et leur dégradation est à l’origine d’émission de toxine dans l’air.
Grâce à ce projet, l’environnement serait débarrassé des PET tout en produisant du pyruvate qu'E.coli serait capable d’utiliser comme source de d’énergie en l’incorporant à son cycle cellulaire.
Nous allons dégrader le PET en catéchol. Puis, ce catéchol résultera en pyruvate par le 2-hydroxymuconate.
OUR MISSION
Our project aims to clean enviroment with the degredation of PET to pyruvate by E.coli. With this project,while the environment will be cleaned from PET, the E.coli would add pyruvate to the cell cycle and use it as a new source.
We divide our project into two parts. At the first part we found gene design for converting the PET into 2-hydroxymuconate semialdehyde in iGEM database. The arrangement at the bottom explains the first part:
At the second part, we wanted to go further and researched the gene parts for convertion of 2-hydroxymuconate semialdehyde into pyruvate. This part will give us the chance of adding new parts to iGEM database. In this arrangement, it can be observed in detail:
Why do we want to degrade PET?
As you know, plastic smears into the soil and water easily, although plastic producing companies claim that, they collect the plastic lower quality available again and this way allows recycling , it is possible to see PET in water and soil. Our aim is to separate freshwater(rivers and lakes), salt water(sea and oceans) and the most important, the soil from this carcinogen with biodegradation method which we design with E.coli. Despite of recycling of PET, after a while it would be a substance which is unusable and unrecyclable and because of this reason we want to design an organism to degrade it.
How the PET smears to the lakes?
Ultimately, people live close to water resources, at the same time betray water. Plastic smears water at different forms( like bottle,bag or pot) and the damage increases with uncollected years.
Derraik, J.B, (September 2010). The pollution of the marine environment by plastic debris: a review. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 44(9), 842-852. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X02002205
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