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Discovered in the shores of Japan this millennial bacteria could be the solution to a huge world crisis, pollution. Known for its ability to produce and secrete enzymes that degrade PET plastic bottles. Ideonella sakainesis is the future to dealing with the global problem which is plastic waste which runs in the river sediments and ocean banks polluting and disturbing the world`s ecosystem.
This is a surface view of the gram negative bacterium under a powerful microscope. SEM is used to view the surface area of very small microbes which cannot be viewed clearly using a light microscope.
A Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium, designed strain 201-F6T, was isolated from a microbial consortium that degrades poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) collected in Sakai city, Japan, and was characterized on the basis of a polyphasic taxonomic study. The cells were motile with a polar flagellum. The strain contained cytochrome oxidase and catalase. It grew within the pH range 5.5–9.0 (optimally at pH 7–7.5) and at 15–42 ºC (optimally at 30–37 ºC). The major isoprenoid quinone was ubiquinone with eight isoprene units (Q-8). C16 : 0, C1
7 : 0 cyclo, C18 :1ω7c and C12 : 0 2-OH were the predominant cellular fatty acids. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, lyso-phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and diphosphatidylglycerol. The G+C content of genomic DNA was 70.4 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis using the 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain 201-F6T was affiliated to the genus
Ideonella
, and was closely related to
Ideonella dechloratans
LMG 28178T (97.7 %) and
Ideonella azotifigens
JCM 15503T (96.6 %). Strain 201-F6T could be clearly distinguished from the related species of the genus
Ideonella
by its physiological and biochemical characteristics as well as by its phylogenetic position and DNA–DNA relatedness. Therefore, the strain represents a novel species of the genus
Ideonella
, for which the name Ideonella sakaiensis sp. nov. (type strain 201-F6T=NBRC 110686T=TISTR 2288T) is proposed.
The plastic bottles we throw away today will be around for hundreds of years. It's one of the key reasons why the mounting plastic pollution problem, which is having a deadly effect on marine life, is so serious.
Descriptions of the enzymes that are produced by idionella sakainensis that degrade the poly(ethylene terephthalate) which is the largest produced type of plastic and is extremely difficulty to degrade and also ver harmful to the environment. 50 million tons of PET are produced yearly.
The discovery of the bacteria, Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6T, was published in the journal Science in March 2016. The brand new species was identified by microbiologists from Kyoto Institute of Technology and Keio University while they were attempting to gather samples of sediment, soil, and wastewater that had been contaminated by poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) near plastic bottle recycling locations in Sakai, Japan. The intriguing characteristic of this novel bacterium is its ability to eat this type of plastic that was previously considered to be one of the most infamously resistant materials (1).
