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Polyolefin colonization and partial degradation by Gordonia sp., and Arthrobacter sp. isolated from wetlands and compost

2025· article· en· W4412651125 on OpenAlexfundno aff
Scott A. Coughlin, Adam McFall, Stephen A. Kelly, Julianne Megaw

Bibliographic record

VenuePolymer Degradation and Stability · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldEnvironmental Science
TopicMicroplastics and Plastic Pollution
Canadian institutionsnot available
FundersQueen's UniversityDepartment of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, UK GovernmentQueen's University BelfastDepartment of Agriculture and Rural Development, Northern Ireland
KeywordsPolyolefinCompostArthrobacterColonizationBiologyMicrobiologyDegradation (telecommunications)MesophileFood scienceChemistryEcologyBacteriaOrganic chemistry

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

• Gordonia sp. iso11 and Arthrobacter sp. degrade polypropylene and polystyrene. • 22.8 % and 19.5 % mass loss of PP and PS degradation, respectively over 28 d. • Gordonia sp. iso11 forms biofilms on PP under nutrient-deplete conditions. • Putative polypropylene-degrading enzyme AlkB identified by whole genome sequencing. Plastics and microplastics constitute an ever-increasing pollutant in the biosphere. There is clear evidence that environmental microorganisms possess enzyme systems and metabolic apparatus to degrade natural high-molecular-weight polymers, which substantially overlap with those involved in the biodegradation of plastics. This study investigated the presence and activities of plastic-degrading microorganisms in environments with a high abundance of plant-derived polymers, including cellulosic, chitinous, or lignin-derived compounds. Microorganisms were enriched in a minimal medium, supplemented with low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polypropylene (PP), poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), or polystyrene (PS) as the sole carbon source, resulting in 12 bacterial isolates. Plastic mass loss and cell viability were measured over a 28-day incubation period, in addition to assessment of biofilm formation. Gordonia sp. iso11 displayed mass loss of PP of up to 22.8 % and formed a viable dense biofilm (10 9 CFU cm −2 ) on a PP film. A putative alkane-1-monoxygenase (AlkB) was identified from genome sequence analysis, which aligned with a known LDPE-degrading enzyme. Furthermore, reductions in the contact angle of medium supernatant from Gordonia sp. iso11 provided evidence of biosurfactant production which may enhance the bioavailability of the synthetic plastic. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of PP degradation by Gordonia , achieved without any pretreatment or microbial consortium. These findings highlight the potential of environments rich in natural polymers to yield potent plastic-degrading strains.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame distilled prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.000
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.000
Version: codex-gemma-dda1882f352aValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.055
Threshold uncertainty score0.562

Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.000
Bibliometrics0.0000.000
Science and technology studies0.0000.000
Scholarly communication0.0000.000
Open science0.0000.000
Research integrity0.0000.000
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0000.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.007
GPT teacher head0.201
Teacher spread0.194 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations4
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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