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Ideonella sakaiensis

A translucent, star-shaped structure with multiple arms extending outward, resembling a snowflake, is shown against a black background. This structure is Ideonella sakaiensis, a bacterium discovered in 2016 that breaks down PET plastic using specific enzymes.

A bacterium identified in 2016 in sediment outside a PET bottle recycling plant in Sakai, Japan. It secretes two enzymes — PETase and MHETase — that together break the ester bonds in polyethylene terephthalate, allowing the bacterium to metabolise the resulting fragments as a carbon source. The first known organism to digest a major synthetic plastic, and the basis for several engineered enzymes now being tested at industrial scale.

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