A team of scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed a synthetic ‘worm gut’ to interrupt down plastics, offering hope for a nature-inspired method to tackle the worldwide plastic pollution problem.
By feeding worms with plastics and cultivating microbes present in their guts, researchers from NTU’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) have demonstrated a brand new method to speed up plastic biodegradation.
Previous studies have shown that Zophobas atratus worms — the larvae of the darkling beetle commonly sold as pet food and generally known as ‘superworms’ for his or her dietary value — can survive on a weight loss plan of plastic because its gut comprises bacteria able to breaking down common sorts of plastic. Nevertheless, their use in plastics processing has been impractical as a result of the slow rate of feeding and worm maintenance.
NTU scientists have now demonstrated a method to overcome these challenges by isolating the worm’s gut bacteria and using them to do the job without the necessity for giant scale worm breeding.
NTU Associate Professor Cao Bin on the School of CEE and Principal Investigator at SCELSE said, “A single worm can only devour a couple of couple of milligrams of plastic in its lifetime, so imagine the variety of worms that might be needed if we were to depend on them to process our plastic waste. Our method eliminates this need by removing the worm from the equation. We concentrate on boosting the useful microbes within the worm gut and constructing a synthetic ‘worm gut’ that may efficiently break down plastics.”
The study, published in Environment International in January, is aligned with the University’s commitment to fostering innovation and translating research into practical solutions that profit society under its NTU2025 five-year strategic plan.
Developing a synthetic worm gut
To develop their method, the NTU scientists fed three groups of superworms different plastic diets — High-density polyethylene (HDPE), Polypropylene (PP) and Polystyrene (PS) — over 30 days. The control group was fed a weight loss plan of oatmeal.
The NTU scientists chosen the plastics as they’re amongst probably the most common plastics on the planet, utilized in on a regular basis items like food boxes and detergent bottles. HDPE is a variety of plastic known for its high-impact resistance, making it difficult to interrupt down.
After feeding the worms plastic, scientists extracted the microbiomes from their gut and incubated them in flasks containing synthetic nutrients and various kinds of plastics, forming a synthetic ‘worm gut’. Over six weeks, the microbiomes were left to grow within the flasks at room temperature.
Increase in plastic-degrading bacteria
The scientists found that in comparison with the control group, the flasks which contained the gut microbiomes from the plastic-fed worms showed a big increase in plastic-degrading bacteria.
Moreover, the microbial communities colonising the plastics within the flasks were simpler and more tailored to the particular variety of plastic than the microbes found on plastics that had been fed on to the worms . When the microbial communities are simpler and targeted to a selected variety of plastic, this translates to potential for more efficient plastic degradation when utilized in real-life applications.
First creator of the study Dr Liu Yinan, Research Fellow on the School of CEE and SCELSE, said, “Our study represents the primary reported successful try and develop plastic-associated bacterial communities from gut microbiomes of plastic-fed worms. Through exposing the gut microbiomes to specific conditions, we were capable of boost the abundance of plastic-degrading bacteria present in our artificial ‘worm gut,’ suggesting that our method is stable and replicable at scale.”
The researchers say their proof-of-concept lays the inspiration for developing biotechnological approaches that use worms’ gut microbiomes to process plastic waste.
For his or her next steps, the researchers want to grasp how the bacteria within the superworm’s gut break down the plastics on the molecular level. Understanding the mechanism will help scientists engineer plastic-degrading bacterial communities to interrupt down plastics efficiently in the longer term.
