Comment on "A bacterium that degrades and assimilates poly(ethylene terephthalate)"

Yu Yang; Jun Yang; Lei Jiang

doi:10.1126/science.aaf8305

Comment on "A bacterium that degrades and assimilates poly(ethylene terephthalate)"

Science. 2016 Aug 19;353(6301):759. doi: 10.1126/science.aaf8305.

Authors

Yu Yang¹, Jun Yang², Lei Jiang²

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Environment, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, P.R. China.
² Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Environment, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, P.R. China. yangjun@buaa.edu.cn jianglei@iccas.ac.cn.

PMID: 27540159
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf8305

Abstract

Yoshida et al (Report, 11 March 2016, p. 1196) reported that the bacterium Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6 can degrade and assimilate poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET). However, the authors exaggerated degradation efficiency using a low-crystallinity PET and presented no straightforward experiments to verify depolymerization and assimilation of PET. Thus, the authors' conclusions are rather misleading.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Comment

MeSH terms

Betaproteobacteria / enzymology*
Plastics / metabolism*
Polyethylene Terephthalates / metabolism*

Substances

Plastics
Polyethylene Terephthalates