Difference between revisions of "Team:Makerere University/Description"

 
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<h1>Project description</h1>
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<h1>PLASTIC DEGRADATION</h1>
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  <h2> background</h2>
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  <p>Since 1964, plastics production has increased 20-fold, reaching 311 million tonnes in 2014, the equivalent of more than 900 Empire State Buildings. Plastics production is expected to double again in 20 years and almost quadruple by 2050.
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Plastics have been intensively developed during the last 50 years</p>
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<p> Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is one of the most widely used plastic worldwide. However, the durability of PET results in its difficulty to be degraded which leads to a global accumulation of plastic waste.
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Many solutions have been brought up in dealing with the plastic waste. Compared to the traditional chemical recycling processes, enzymatic hydrolysis of PET is presently evaluated as an environmentally friendly strategy for recycling post-consumer PET wastes. And during the last 15 years, many natural enzymes extracted from microorganisms have been found to be capable of decomposing PET.
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<p>Our project is to address the hazardous effects of poor plastic waste disposal in Africa. Plastic in Africa is majorly in the form PET modelled in the form of bottles, containers and even polythene making them one of the most commonly used house hold materials. However, after they have served their use they are disposed off most commonly by throwing them away or by burning them(combustion).<br>
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Either of these ways are not environmentally friendly since the plastic can contaminate animal feed and possibly poison them or through combustion can enhance on the known threat of global warming.This would have a great impact on the nutrition and also influence agricultural production. <br>With the knowledge of synthetic biology plastic waste can be degraded and even produce useful products after its degradation. </p>
 
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In recent decades, many labs around the world have proposed a variety of ways to degrade PET biologically. The most inspiring one is the biodegradation ability of a recently found bacterial, called Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6, by Shosuke Yoshida and his colleagues from Japan, which has been studied and published in Science this March
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<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/6/67/T--makerere_university--bottles-conta...t-802221.jpg" style="width:600px;height:400px;"><p>PET bottles are dumped everywhere in our communities,and the government is tirelessly working to reduce the accumulation which may hinder public health</p>
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  <p>Plastics dumped near water systems utilised by the community, which unneccesarily has become a custom that people are unbothered by the threats plastic accumulation can have on there health and livelihood. </p>
  
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. They analyzed the degrading pathways and isolated two kinds of enzymes, PETase and MHETase. The PETase degrades PET into MHET (mono(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalic acid) and MHETase degrades MHET into TPA (terephthalic acid) and EG (ethylene glycol).
 
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<h3> Our project</h3>
 
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<p>The project is set up to utilize the enzymatic machinery from the bacterium <b><i>Ideonella sakaiensis</i></b> as it is capable of manufacturing the enzymes of <i>PETase</i> and <i>MHETase</i> which are important in the degradation of PET. <br>
 
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Isolated segments of the genes for the respective enzymes are transformed into the a competent <i>E. coli</i> cell so that it also obtains the plastic degrading character as in <i>Ideonella</i>.
 
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<i>Ideonella sakaiensis</i> is a bacteria that naturally decomposes polyethylene terephthalate, we decide to genetically modify E. coli cells to model the plastic degradation machine by adding the Lipase and Chlorogenate Esterase genes from Ideonella sakaiensis into E. coli bacterial cells. We shall obtain the two genes encoding the enzymes used by Ideonella sakaiensis, PETase and MHETase, and insert the gene into E. coli plasmids and then put the plasmids into E. coli cells. With the engineered E.coli bacteria, the enzymes produced are able to express the plastic-degrading abilities
 
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<b>Goal:</b> To have a clean and safe environment free of plastic pollution.
 
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<b>Objectives.</b>
 
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<li>To engineer a bacteria capable of degrading PET plastics.</li>
 
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<li>To sensitize the community about the danger associated with plastic wastes.</li>
 
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<h> references</h>
 
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1]The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics (World Economic Forum, 2016)
 
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[2]Yoshida, Shosuke, et al. A bacterium that degrades and assimilates poly (ethylene terephthalate). Science. 351.6278 (2016): 1196-1199.
 
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Latest revision as of 21:09, 28 September 2018

Project description

PLASTIC DEGRADATION

Our project is to address the hazardous effects of poor plastic waste disposal in Africa. Plastic in Africa is majorly in the form PET modelled in the form of bottles, containers and even polythene making them one of the most commonly used house hold materials. However, after they have served their use they are disposed off most commonly by throwing them away or by burning them(combustion).
Either of these ways are not environmentally friendly since the plastic can contaminate animal feed and possibly poison them or through combustion can enhance on the known threat of global warming.This would have a great impact on the nutrition and also influence agricultural production.
With the knowledge of synthetic biology plastic waste can be degraded and even produce useful products after its degradation.



PET bottles are dumped everywhere in our communities,and the government is tirelessly working to reduce the accumulation which may hinder public health



Plastics dumped near water systems utilised by the community, which unneccesarily has become a custom that people are unbothered by the threats plastic accumulation can have on there health and livelihood.