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Professor John McGeehan and Dr Gregg Beckham (University of Portsmouth) and the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory NREL discovered the crystal structure of PETase. PETase comes from Ideonella sakaiensis, a bacteria that was discovered outside of a bottle recycling factory. Scientists believe that with further investigation into how PETase degrades PET they will be able to engineer the enzyme to degrade PET more efficiently and design other enzymes that can also break down plastics.
The enzyme can also breakdown PEF (polyethylene furandicarboxylate), which is a bio-based substitute PET plastic.
Scientists explain PETase and how they accidentally made it better at degrading PET
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