Dark side of a bio-based and biodegradable plastic? Assessment of pathogenic microbes associated with poly(butylene succinate-co-adipate) under ambient and future climates using next-generation sequencing

Kantida Juncheed; Benjawan Tanunchai; Sara Fareed Mohamed Wahdan; Katikarn Thongsuk; Martin Schädler; Matthias Noll; Witoon Purahong

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.966363

Dark side of a bio-based and biodegradable plastic? Assessment of pathogenic microbes associated with poly(butylene succinate-co-adipate) under ambient and future climates using next-generation sequencing

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Oct 13:13:966363. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.966363. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Kantida Juncheed^{1

2}, Benjawan Tanunchai^{2

3}, Sara Fareed Mohamed Wahdan^{2

4}, Katikarn Thongsuk², Martin Schädler^{5

6}, Matthias Noll^{3

7}, Witoon Purahong²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, Thailand.
² UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Soil Ecology, Halle (Saale), Germany.
³ Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany.
⁴ Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt.
⁵ UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Community Ecology, Halle (Saale), Germany.
⁶ German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
⁷ Institute for Bioanalysis, Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Coburg, Germany.

Abstract

Bio-based and biodegradable plastic mulching films have been proposed to replace the non-biodegradable plastic mulch films to solve plastic pollution problems in agricultural soils. However, the impact of bio-based and biodegradable plastics on plant and human health remains largely unexplored. Here, we aimed to assess the risk under field conditions of a bio-based and biodegradable poly(butylene succinate-co-adipate; PBSA), a widely used mulching film as carrier of potential pathogenic microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) at ambient and future climate conditions. Overall, we affiliated 64 fungal and 11 bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) as pathogens by using Next-Generation Sequencing approach. Our results revealed that PBSA hosted at least 53 plant pathogens, of which 51 were classified as fungi, while the other two were bacteria. Most fungal plant pathogens were able to withstand the anticipated future climate changes. We detected 13 fungal and eight bacterial OTUs, which were classified as opportunistic human pathogens. Only one bacterial OTU (Enterococcus faecium) was assigned to a human pathogen. While future climate conditions only significantly impacted on the presence and frequency of detection of few pathogens, incubation time was found to significantly impacted on nine pathogens. This result demonstrates the temporal dynamics of pathogens associated with PBSA. The threats to plant and human health were discussed. We emphasize that the risks to human health are relatively low because we mainly found opportunistic pathogens associated with PBSA and the amount are comparable to the plant debris. However, the risks to plant health may be considered as moderate because many plant pathogens were discovered and/or enriched in PBSA. Furthermore, in soil environments, the pathogenic risk of plastic is highly depending on the surrounding soil pathobiome where plastic is being decomposed.

Keywords: PBSA; climate change; human health; interaction effects; opportunistic pathogens; plant pathogens.