Journal Article

Discovering untapped microbial communities through metagenomics for microplastic remediation: recent advances, challenges, and way forward

Américo-Pinheiro, Juliana Heloisa Pinê, Wani, Atif Khurshid, Chopra, Chirag, Mulla, Sikandar I., Naqash, Nafiaah, Akhtar, Nahid, Rahayu, Farida, Djajadi, Djajadi, Singh, Reena, Sher, Farooq

2023

Overview

Microplastics (MPs) are ubiquitous pollutants persisting almost everywhere in the environment. With the increase in anthropogenic activities, MP accumulation is increasing enormously in aquatic, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems. Owing to the slow degradation of plastics, MPs show an increased biomagnification probability of persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic substances thereby creating a threat to environmental biota. Thus, remediation of MP-pollutants requires efficient strategies to circumvent the mobilization of contaminants leaching into the water, soil, and ultimately to human beings. Over the years, several microorganisms have been characterized by the potential to degrade different plastic polymers through enzymatic actions. Metagenomics (MGs) is an effective way to discover novel microbial communities and access their functional genetics for the exploration and characterization of plastic-degrading microbial consortia and enzymes. MGs in combination with metatranscriptomics and metabolomics approaches are a powerful tool to identify and select remediation-efficient microbes in situ. Advancement in bioinformatics and sequencing tools allows rapid screening, mining, and prediction of genes that are capable of polymer degradation. This review comprehensively summarizes the growing threat of microplastics around the world and highlights the role of MGs and computational biology in building effective response strategies for MP remediation.

• Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Advances in Water and Wastewater Technologies for Remediation of Contaminants of Emerging Concern / Anthropogenic factors / Aquatic ecosystems / Aquatic Pollution / Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution / Bioaccumulation / Bioinformatics / Biological effects / Biological magnification / Biota / Contaminants / Degradation / Earth and Environmental Science / Ecosystem / Ecotoxicology / Environment / Environmental Chemistry / Environmental Health / Environmental Pollutants - analysis / Environmental science / Genetics / Humans / In situ leaching / Leaching / Marine ecosystems / Metabolomics / Metagenomics / Microbial activity / Microbiomes / Microbiota / Microorganisms / Microplastics / Plastic pollution / Plastics / Plastics - metabolism / Pollutants / Polymers / prediction / probability / Remediation / soil / Soil contamination / Soil microorganisms / Soil water / Terrestrial ecosystems / Toxic substances / toxicity / transcriptomics / Waste Water Technology / Water Management / Water Pollutants, Chemical - analysis / Water Pollution Control