[HN Gopher] Widespread distribution of bacteria containing PETas...
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Widespread distribution of bacteria containing PETases across
global oceans
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 100 points
Date : 2025-11-11 12:22 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (academic.oup.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (academic.oup.com)
| perlgeek wrote:
| It's no surprise that microorganisms evolve quicker to adapt to
| environmental changes. (At least for evolutionary / genetic
| changes).
|
| That makes me wonder if we'll soon see mammals with gut
| microbiomes that can digest microplastics.
| wswope wrote:
| Yeah, I really look forward to seeing more research on the
| ability of these PETase genes to spread. The article touched on
| it briefly, but it'd be great to have more insight on how much
| of this is due to HGT vs. something likely to originate de novo
| across species.
|
| > That makes me wonder if we'll soon see mammals with gut
| microbiomes that can digest microplastics.
|
| On a less serious note, my cat is deadset on this
| accomplishment.
| evilduck wrote:
| Makes me wonder if we're building towards another
| extinction/oxygen catastrophe type of event. Not one where the
| microplastics themselves are the primary driver, but because
| microplastics are not renewable in the environment without
| humans. With solar energy transitions, greater pollution
| awareness, and a population that's shrinking or leveling off,
| what will happen to all of the microorganisms which spent a
| great deal of energy evolving ways to metabolize plastics that
| suddenly lose that source of energy? They're suddenly less fit
| for their niche.
|
| Or in a different area of concern, what happens to the plastic
| economy when plastics are no longer useful because they'll be
| decomposed too quickly? Sanitary packaging for medical supplies
| come to mind.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| > _what will happen to all of the microorganisms which spent
| a great deal of energy evolving ways to metabolize plastics
| that suddenly lose that source of energy?_
|
| As the article implies, microorganisms evolve relatively
| quickly. So the answer is, they would evolve to consume
| another source of energy. (As has happened for the subjects
| of the article in the opposite direction.)
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| I think environmental conservation efforts would have to be
| fairly successful for your concern.
|
| Fortunately, the US will see that possibility isn't very
| likely. In the 1980s, there was growing concern about the use
| of plastic and styrofoam one-time packaging. Both still
| widely used today...
| bee_rider wrote:
| On an evolutionary timescale, our plastic era probably
| won't last very long, right? The byproducts might, but I
| guess if something learns to eat them, not so much.
|
| Actually it seems pretty crazy that they are figuring it
| out so quickly (guess there's lots of energy bound up in
| those molecules).
| bee_rider wrote:
| I guess we'll have to go back to our old friends glass and
| copper. Petrochemicals were a fad anyway; glass and copper
| have been with us the whole time.
| rob74 wrote:
| Well yeah, if we insist on continuing to burn our limited
| supply of hydrocarbons, soon(ish) we won't have enough for
| making plastics either. Or plastics will become
| prohibitively expensive...
| igor47 wrote:
| This is not true in a practical sense. There is a _lot_
| of petrochemicals still out there and our ability to
| recover marginal reserves keeps improving. I was really
| into the idea of peak oil when I was younger but it
| really hasn 't panned out. Rather, if we continue to
| using oil, we'll cook ourselves and drown ourselves in
| plastic.
| nisegami wrote:
| The eventual end goal should probably be production of
| hydrocarbons using solar power and CO2/water. In other
| words, synthetic photosynthesis.
| ifwinterco wrote:
| Yep, there isn't exactly a shortage of hydrogen, carbon
| or energy in the world. Currently we get all three from
| the same place, but there are other approaches
| ang_cire wrote:
| Though sand is actually becoming a problem commodity to
| source now, too:
|
| https://www.clarknexsen.com/the-global-sand-crisis-
| examining...
|
| https://scitechdaily.com/the-sand-crisis-no-one-is-
| talking-a...
|
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-
| is...
| WJW wrote:
| That's mostly a type of sand needed for concrete, sand
| which is relatively "young" and has not yet had the sharp
| edges ground off by wind and water. You need sharp sand
| in construction, because "round" sand leads to weaker
| concrete.
|
| Sand for glassmaking is more than abundant enough for all
| but the most distant futures, and even then glass is
| extremely recyclable.
| masfuerte wrote:
| There was an article on here (sometime in the last year?)
| claiming that the concrete strength issue is a myth.
| Apparently it's based on a very narrow claim in a single
| academic paper that's been wildly extrapolated.
| excalibur wrote:
| Copper is expensive. If I were looking for a plastic
| alternative, I would follow the beaten path and start with
| aluminum.
| topaz0 wrote:
| Just because they can digest PET does not mean they cannot
| digest other things. Being able to switch between food
| sources as they become more or less abundant is a very common
| adaptation.
| roughly wrote:
| The lifespan of microorganisms is sufficiently short (in most
| cases) that you're turning over the entire population
| regularly - the reason you see such rapid evolution in
| microorganisms is because they do an enormous amount of dying
| and procreating anyway. As such, it's hard to really quantify
| what a microorganism extinction event would look like in a
| way that meaningfully distinguishes it from any random
| Tuesday.
| agilob wrote:
| I don't think they are unlearning how to eat other things.
| It's humans who will have to find a new way to build cars,
| planes, boxes, bottles and electronics. Think how expensive
| it will be once car tire or fiber-optic cable eating bacteria
| hits a major city. Your access to fresh food will be limited
| and you don't even have a single apple tree.
| FarmerPotato wrote:
| It turns out there are a lot of microorganisms (and bigger)
| that attack your apple trees. Nothing is easy.
| japhib wrote:
| That seems very far away. My understanding is that these
| PETases digest plastic VERY slowly and need human engineering
| efforts to digest it in any appreciable amount of time (hours
| to days rather than years). And human bioengineering of these
| enzymes is still not to the point where it's actually usable
| at industrial scale. The paper just says they've discovered
| the variants, not "oh no all animal life on earth is now
| dependent on microplastics" :D
|
| > What happens to the plastic economy when plastics are no
| longer useful because they'll be decomposed too quickly?
|
| We already use lots of biodegradable things for crucial
| applications, such as the wood used in framing houses. Just
| because wood can rot in a damp forest doesn't mean that the
| wood inside your walls will rot away just because. There are
| conditions where it can start rotting, and we're aware of
| those conditions and how to prevent them, at least enough for
| a house to last for decades.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It might be a bad idea to digest plastics. If they get broken
| down in the gut, they'll release all those plasticisers and
| things into the body.
| samrus wrote:
| Evolution would figure that out over time with trial and
| error. We could instead get mammals with plastic
| nails/claws/hooves instead of keratin
| PaulHoule wrote:
| e.g. keratin and cellulose are structural polymers not too
| different from materials like PET.
| lagniappe wrote:
| Can somebody do the napkin math on an estimate for how
| long for us to get plasticized hair and nails and teeth?
| rbartelme wrote:
| If you're interested in this topic, I'd highly recommend
| checking out Michigan State's E coli Long-term Evolution
| Experiment: https://lenski.mmg.msu.edu/ecoli/index.html
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| This implies in the future plastic will rot like wood.
| seydor wrote:
| Protect your plastics with aluminum foil
| cogman10 wrote:
| Yup. In most cases, not a big deal. Plumbing, however, is going
| to be a nightmare.
| forgotoldacc wrote:
| A lot of cities are in the process of replacing lead pipes
| with plastic. Replacing them again is going to be a huge
| burden, especially with an increasingly aging population and
| fewer people to do manual labor unless we have some sort of
| good automation for manual labor.
| cogman10 wrote:
| The replacement in some cases is to install a plastic liner
| rather than remove the pipe.
| gmuslera wrote:
| Life finds a way. Add a potentially usable food source in big
| enough numbers and the ones that take advantage of that will
| thrive.
| tokai wrote:
| So we could end up in a situation where we do ecological harm if
| we stop using plastics.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Probably not. All these critters definitely eat other stuff as
| well. And their non-plastic-eating cousins are probably still
| around anyway, and would just resume their former role if the
| plastic eaters died off.
| mrweasel wrote:
| As George Carlin suggested, maybe the only reason why the
| planet allowed us to evolve was to that it could have plastic:
| https://youtu.be/rld0KDcan_w?si=0h4qZFzO4S9ijwT0&t=204
| keepamovin wrote:
| the prophecy is true - https://youtu.be/rld0KDcan_w?si=WZkF45Ct-
| wsVCUWq&t=188
| silasdavis wrote:
| I've often wondered about this. Does the chemistry imply the
| energetics of this would be less favourable than other organic
| decomposition?
|
| This could be bad too I suppose? Pipes and other chemical
| containment vessels might come under attack.
| kulahan wrote:
| I think this does mean that plastic things could soon rot. It
| could be pretty interesting based on how it spreads. Call a
| remediation company because you noticed the plastic-mold
| growing in your house somewhere.
|
| "Dammit the TV's rotting!"
| johnecheck wrote:
| Time to invent a type of plastic that's poisonous to these
| bacteria!
|
| > Is it harmful to humans?
|
| > Not at all! You can definitely trust that my company has
| studied this in depth. I'm sure it isn't going to make it
| into everyone's bloodstreams before we learn it's actually
| terrible.
| fredrikholm wrote:
| > before we learn it's actually terrible.
|
| Before _you_ learn it 's actually terrible if I may.
| justinclift wrote:
| I remember reading an old SciFi book many years ago
| (decades?) about the scenario where a rapid plastic eating
| bacteria gets into the world.
|
| Wish I could remember the name of it, as I roughly remember
| the book as being pretty good too. :)
| ifwinterco wrote:
| Robes are probably a big one as well - in the olden days
| (before plastics) any ropes you used in the sea would rot
| fairly quickly. Nowadays that obviously isn't a problem - we
| have really good fairly cheap robes made of plastic, but maybe
| in the future it will become a problem again
| scythe wrote:
| Polyethylene terephthalate is a little unique. Part of its
| popularity comes from recycling, because it is "easy" to break
| down. For other polymers like polystyrene or PVC it's not so
| easy.
|
| But any plastic is going to be harder to break down than
| cellulose because life depends on water and plastics are
| usually hydrophobic. So non-porous things will always break
| down pretty slowly. Plenty of plants grow in the water, after
| all, and aren't immediately consumed by bacteria. Microplastics
| should, in principle, be the first things to go.
| ctoth wrote:
| The paper frames this as microorganisms "exploring novel
| ecological niches." More accurate framing: we accidentally
| created a massive evolutionary pressure toward undoing one of
| our primary material technologies. And we can't stop it. Oops?
| vatsachak wrote:
| Okay bacteria now do nuclear waste
| HPsquared wrote:
| We already have radiotrophic fungus, found near Chernobyl.
| Interestingly they appear to use melanin to absorb and utilise
| energy from the radiation.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus
| mrweasel wrote:
| It doesn't really eat the nuclear waste, it "just" feeds on
| the radioactive energi, so it doesn't speed up the decay. But
| you can use them as a radiation shield.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| As far as I know you _cannot_ speed up the decay, unless
| you put it in a particle accelerator and bombard it into
| something with a much faster half life?
|
| Not exactly a scalable solution.
| miohtama wrote:
| We just need particle accelerator mushrooms
| andrewflnr wrote:
| That just gives you radioactive bacteria who might crawl around
| a bit and spread the radioactivity. You can't get rid of a
| nuclear problem by chemistry.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| You are correct, of course, but in a sci-fi scenario maybe
| you could have a colony of fungi that move nuclear material
| around internally to keep it 'hot', thus 'burn it off' faster
| to extract energy. It might collect material from a wide
| area.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| Things happily eat nuclear waste. This is one of the big
| problems with nuclear waste, your body will happily integrate
| radioactive isotopes or heavy metals, which then slowly kill
| you.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I'm guessing evolution of these is driven more by microfibers
| from polyester cloth (which is also PET) rather than plastic
| bottles. The fibers have much higher surface area for bacteria to
| attack.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| If life found a way to eat wood, surely it will find one of our
| plastics appetizing? Turns out, yes.
|
| https://medium.com/@datavector/why-plastic-eating-bacteria-e...
| Modified3019 wrote:
| It's wild to me that for tens of millions of years, wood didn't
| rot. It just sat there, piling up and occasionally burning.
|
| Curiously near Chernobyl, decomposition microbes are
| suppressed, so things can hang around longer:
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/forests-around...
| dexwiz wrote:
| For this reason, Earth will never make new coal. New oil will
| be formed, but coal is mostly compressed cellulose. Today it
| would be digested instead.
| poizan42 wrote:
| Wood and other plant matter is still turning into peat
| under the right circumstances to this day. And peat is
| still slowly turning into various kinds of coal. It's true
| that the majority of coal (about 90%) originates from the
| carboniferous period, but microorganisms today does still
| not manage to break down all cellulose under all
| circumstances.
| metalman wrote:
| algae eats jet fuel, fast enough that there are algasides added
| to discourage them.
|
| _plastcics are more or less like liquid hydrocarbons, with there
| lack of porosity as the thing that keeps them from bieng eaten,
| so that unlike most things plastics present a 2 dimensional
| surface where engulfing single or small groups of molecules is
| impossible, so other sort of feeding_ mechanism* must be at play
| to eat plastics.*
|
| *off the cuff conjecture from a non specialist
| p1necone wrote:
| Devastated there's a possible future where my game boy rots.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| can PETases attack ABS? I think gameboys/legos are safe for
| now.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| This is fascinating! Is this on-net good or bad for humans? On
| one hand, bacteria that consume plastics can help clean up the
| mess humans have produced, keeping the world somewhat more
| balanced. On the other, plastics are very useful to humans, so if
| they start "rotting" away this could cause lots of problems for
| society.
|
| My guess is that this is on-net good for humanity. Curious what
| more qualified folks think.
| franktankbank wrote:
| Plastic was easy mode. Whatever we come up with to replace it
| is going to make things shittier somehow. In the form of more
| expensive processing and probably more exotically produced
| (harmful to humans working the plant).
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Plastics as in "polymers made of small organic monomers" are
| sort of a universal solution. Nature uses them a lot as well.
| For the same reasons we do, too.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| I wonder if we really will come up with a replacement at all.
| Even if the bacteria can digest plastics, I can imagine that
| it may take N years to fully degrade a 0.125" piece. If N is
| 10 years, then maybe we just accept that plastics become
| unusable after 10 years for most applications -- For most of
| the things I use, I think this would be fine. Plumbing would
| be a disaster though. But if N is 1 year then ya, I think
| we'll need something totally new.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| Plastic is a hydrocarbon. If bacteria can metabolize it, we
| have a whole new source of GHG on our hands. It looks like
| 5-10% of petroleum ends up as plastic, which seems like a
| decently sized new supply of GHG to worry about. Even if we
| switched entirely to renewables tomorrow, we'd still have 5-10%
| of all of our emissions ever just sitting there waiting to
| eventually be released by bacteria. (Over what time span, I
| have no idea.)
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