MINI REVIEW article
Front. Syst. Biol.
Sec. Integrative Systems Microbiology
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsysb.2025.1603731
This article is part of the Research TopicSystems Biology and Synthetic Approaches in Achieving Sustainable ActionView all articles
Enzyme-Displaying Spores as a Novel Strategy for Mixed Fibre Textile Recycling
Provisionally accepted
- Technical University Dresden, Dresden, Germany
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Global textile manufacturing practices are responsible for an increasing amount of textile waste that pollutes our planet. Mixed fiber blends pose a recycling challenge due to their heterogeneous structure. Current mechanical, chemical, thermochemical and enzymatic strategies suffer from several limitations such as high energy costs, extensive pre-treatment requirements and enzyme instability. This mini-review aims to present recent developments in the research field and to introduce Spore Surface Display (SSD) technology as a new biological approach for mixed textile degradation. SSD allows enzymes to be anchored on the robust bacterial spore surface, immobilizing multiple enzymes required for simultaneous cotton-polyester degradation into their respective monomers. The mini-review also includes an initial proposal for a process design suitable for a full mixed textile degradation process using this synthetic biology approach.
Keywords: Bacillus subitilis, Textile recycling, Blended textiles, Bioprocess engineering, spore surface display
Received: 31 Mar 2025; Accepted: 12 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lehmann and Herrmann. 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:
Matti Lehmann, Technical University Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Max Herrmann, Technical University Dresden, Dresden, Germany
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