Omic-driven strategies to unveil microbiome potential for biodegradation of plastics: a review

Plastic waste accumulation has lately been identified as the leading and pervasive environmental concern, harming all living beings, natural habitats, and the global market. Given this issue, developing ecologically friendly solutions, such as biodegradation instead of standard disposal, is critical. To effectively address and develop better strategies, it is critical to understand the inter-relationship between microorganisms and plastic, the role of genes and enzymes involved in this process. However, the complex nature of microbial communities and the diverse mechanisms involved in plastic biodegradation have hindered the development of efficient plastic waste degradation strategies. Omics-driven approaches, encompassing genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics have revolutionized our understanding of microbial ecology and biotechnology. Therefore, this review explores the application of omics technologies in plastic degradation studies and discusses the key findings, challenges, and future prospects of omics-based approaches in identifying novel plastic-degrading microorganisms, enzymes, and metabolic pathways. The integration of omics technologies with advanced molecular technologies such as the recombinant DNA technology and synthetic biology would guide in the optimization of microbial consortia and engineering the microbial systems for enhanced plastic biodegradation under various environmental conditions.

Graphical Abstract