% IMPORTANT: The following is UTF-8 encoded.  This means that in the presence
% of non-ASCII characters, it will not work with BibTeX 0.99 or older.
% Instead, you should use an up-to-date BibTeX implementation like “bibtex8” or
% “biber”.

@PHDTHESIS{deWitt:1031968,
      author       = {de Witt, Jan},
      title        = {{B}iodegradation and microbial upcycling of plastics},
      volume       = {289},
      school       = {Düsseldorf},
      type         = {Dissertation},
      address      = {Jülich},
      publisher    = {Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH Zentralbibliothek, Verlag},
      reportid     = {FZJ-2024-05892},
      isbn         = {978-3-95806-804-9},
      series       = {Schriften des Forschungszentrums Jülich Reihe
                      Schlüsseltechnologien / Key Technologies},
      pages        = {XVI, 259},
      year         = {2024},
      note         = {Dissertation, Düsseldorf, 2024},
      abstract     = {Plastics have undoubtedly revolutionized our daily lives,
                      becoming irreplaceable in several sectors, including
                      packaging, healthcare, and automotive industries. However,
                      current endof- life strategies cannot cope with the
                      increasing global production, which exceeded 400 million
                      tons in 2022, leading to a global plastic pollution crisis.
                      Biological catalysis has the potential to overcome the
                      drawbacks of conventional recycling, using enzymes and
                      microbes for the depolymerization of plastics and their
                      subsequent conversion to value-added compounds. To
                      facilitate the transition towards a circular plastics
                      economy, the overall goal of this thesis is to provide new
                      biological end-of-life solutions for plastics. Therefore,
                      the substrate range of the biotechnological workhorse
                      Pseudomonas putida KT2440 was expanded with prevalent
                      plastic hydrolysates providing them as feedstock for
                      microbial upcycling. Deep metabolic engineering enabled the
                      utilization of polyamide (PA) hydrolysates as a carbon
                      source, while RNA-sequencing revealed the synthetic
                      metabolic routes and how they mesh with the native
                      metabolism. In parallel, new nylonase enzymes were
                      discovered and characterized that showed activities towards
                      PA and poly(esteramides). In addition to PA-derived
                      compounds, metabolic routes for dicarboxylic acids and diols
                      were established and their combination yielded a powerful
                      platform strain that fully metabolized a complex polyester
                      mock hydrolysate. Moreover, rational metabolic design
                      enabled the degradation of branched short-chain
                      dicarboxylates, including itaconic acid, thereby further
                      expanding the metabolic palette of Pseudomonas with plastic
                      monomers. To close the life cycle of plastic waste,
                      hydrolysates should not only be metabolized but also
                      upcycled. This was achieved by converting the newly
                      accessible plastic-derived feedstocks into
                      polyhydroxyalkanoates, demonstrating, among others, the
                      conversion of nylon to polyhydroxybutyrate through
                      hydrolysis and microbial conversion. The resulting products
                      are environmentally benign due to their biodegradability and
                      resources are maintained in the material cycle, reducing the
                      production of virgin fossil-based plastics. With regard to a
                      circular plastics economy, it is essential to consider
                      plastic coatings as an additional source of complexity in
                      plastic waste. For this, the novel Halopseudomonas
                      formosensis FZJ was isolated from a compost heap due to its
                      ability to metabolize poly(ester-urethane) coatings. The
                      detailed characterization of its metabolic pathways and
                      enzymes provides the scientific basis for future
                      bio-recycling processes of coated plastics and thus
                      increasingly complex materials.},
      cin          = {IBG-1},
      cid          = {I:(DE-Juel1)IBG-1-20101118},
      pnm          = {2172 - Utilization of renewable carbon and energy sources
                      and engineering of ecosystem functions (POF4-217)},
      pid          = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-2172},
      typ          = {PUB:(DE-HGF)3 / PUB:(DE-HGF)11},
      urn          = {urn:nbn:de:0001-2503060801542.370078637444},
      doi          = {10.34734/FZJ-2024-05892},
      url          = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1031968},
}