ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Aquatic Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1680692
This article is part of the Research TopicMicrobial Production of Biodegradable PlasticsView all articles
Functional and Genomic Insights into BHET-degrading Stenotrophomonas sp. isolated from the Marine Plastisphere
Provisionally accepted
- 1Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), Daejeon, Republic of Korea
- 2University of Science and Technology, Yuseong-gu, Republic of Korea
- 3Nakdonggang National Institute of Biological Resources, Sangju-si, Republic of Korea
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Enzymatic degradation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) has dramatically advanced through protein engineering of PETase, accelerating the biocatalytic depolymerization process. However, the subsequent microbial valorization of PET-derived intermediates, such as bis (2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET) and terephthalic acid (TPA), remains limited because of restricted availability and suboptimal activity of specific biocatalytic enzymes. In this study, eight microbial species were isolated from the enriched cultures of marine plastic waste, using 1% PET, BHET and TPA as the sole carbon source. Stenotrophomonas was the only species detected in all the cultures. Strain WED208 was isolated from a BHET-enriched culture and selected for its potential role in plastic degradation. Phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene revealed 99.44% similarity to Stenotrophomonas riyadhensis; however, it exhibited distinct physiological and genomic features. Strain WED208 degraded approximately 30% of BHET into mono (2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (MHET) over 30 days but did not catalyze further conversion to TPA. Comparative analysis identified a putative BHETase (WED208_02958) containing conserved catalytic residues (Ser90, Asp217, and His245). Structural modeling and protein-ligand docking analysis confirmed a key interaction between Ser90 and the ester bond of BHET, supporting the microbial hydrolytic function. Although strain WED208 did not degrade PET or TPA, its genome harbored two putative PETase genes and key enzymes potentially involved in TPA degradation, including diol dehydrogenase (tphB), MFS transporter (pcaK), and LysR-type transcriptional regulator (lysR). These findings suggest that WED208 is a promising microbial resource for enzyme engineering and has potential use in microbial consortia to enhance PET biodegradation and upcycling.
Keywords: plastisphere, BHET biodegradation, Stenotrophomonas, BHETase, TPA transporter
Received: 14 Aug 2025; Accepted: 06 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhuo, JIN, Lee and Lee. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hyung-gwan Lee, trustin@kribb.re.kr
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