Engineering Biology for Climate & Sustainability
Mitigation of Environmental Pollution Goal:

Mitigate targeted environmental pollutants through biosequestration and biodegradation.

Current State-of-the-Art

Biosequestration leverages biological organisms and biobased systems to recognize, bind, and absorb target contaminants. Examples of biosequestration are primarily seen with carbon, including CO2, and bacterial and macroalgal binding of heavy metals,1Giachino, A., Focarelli, F., Marles-Wright, J., & Waldron, K. J. (2021). Synthetic biology approaches to copper remediation: Bioleaching, accumulation and recycling. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 97(2), fiaa249. View Publication, 2 Ankit, Bordoloi, N., Tiwari, J., Kumar, S., Korstad, J., & Bauddh, K. (2020). Efficiency of Algae for Heavy Metal Removal, Bioenergy Production, and Carbon Sequestration. In R. N. Bharagava (Ed.), Emerging Eco-friendly Green Technologies for Wastewater Treatment (pp. 77–101). Springer. View Publication, 3Mazur, L. P., Cechinel, M. A. P., de Souza, S. M. A. G. U., Boaventura, R. A. R., & Vilar, V. J. P. (2018). Brown marine macroalgae as natural cation exchangers for toxic metal removal from industrial wastewaters: A review. Journal of Environmental Management, 223, 215–253. View Publication and there has been demonstrated success of oil spill bioremediation by hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria.4Adeleye, A. O., Nkereuwem, M. E., Omokhudu, G. I., Amoo, A. O., Shiaka, G. P., & Yerima, M. B. (2018). Effect of microorganisms in the bioremediation of spent engine oil and petroleum related environmental pollution. Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management, 22(2), 157–167. View Publication, 5Ron, E. Z., & Rosenberg, E. (2014). Enhanced bioremediation of oil spills in the sea. Current Opinion in Biotechnology, 27, 191–194. View Publication While heavy metals are a significant environmental remediation challenge, so too are other recalcitrant materials, including plastics and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are heavily abundant in waters and soils world-wide. The ability to sequester, and then degrade, these pollutants through biological processes will significantly impact all biospheres.

In general, biosequestration of inorganics tends to be a slow process because the biochemistries involved are inherently toxic to organisms. For example, toxic inorganics can compete with normal metal cofactors for binding in enzymes and damage important biomolecules.6Dudev, T., & Lim, C. (2014). Competition among Metal Ions for Protein Binding Sites: Determinants of Metal Ion Selectivity in Proteins. Chemical Reviews, 114(1), 538–556. View Publication Approaches to circumvent these issues include finding organisms and proteins that are resistant to metal toxicity, engineering cofactor binding competition, enabling organisms to compartmentalize toxins, engineering strong uptake systems, and accelerating enzymatic processes to mineralize inorganics, which can effectively detoxify the pollutant. Alternatively, once inorganic contaminants have been taken up through biosequestration, they could be reduced using conventional chemical processing into solid metal.

In contrast to biosequestration, biodegradation is the breakdown of organic materials by organisms and cellular/cell-free complexes. Importantly, organic contaminants are not necessarily toxic to organisms or disruptive to cells at the molecular level. Detoxification of organic contaminants often occurs via metabolic processes, such as when bacteria or enzymes break down an organic compound into chemicals the cell could use (e.g., acetate). Thus, it is important to engineer metabolic pathways for more efficient breakdown of organic contaminants, in addition to developing organisms and cell-free systems for better binding and recognition of target compounds.

Breakthrough Capabilities & Milestones

Degrade plastic waste through engineered bioprocesses.

For more on engineering biology to recycle/up-cycle plastic waste, please see Goal: Enable sustainable production of plastics and chemicals. | Breakthrough Capability: Produce commodity chemicals by upcycling waste streams via bioprocessing.

Enable the biodegradation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water and soil.10Shahsavari, E., Rouch, D., Khudur, L. S., Thomas, D., Aburto-Medina, A., & Ball, A. S. (2021). Challenges and Current Status of the Biological Treatment of PFAS-Contaminated Soils. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 8. View Publication.

*Liu, J., & Mejia Avendaño, S. (2013). Microbial degradation of polyfluoroalkyl chemicals in the environment: A review. Environment International, 61, 98–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2013.08.022

Enable the biosequestration of heavy metals in the environment and at scale.

For more about enabling engineering biology for uptake and processing of metals, please see Goal: Enable resource recovery through biomining.

Footnotes

  1. Giachino, A., Focarelli, F., Marles-Wright, J., & Waldron, K. J. (2021). Synthetic biology approaches to copper remediation: Bioleaching, accumulation and recycling. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 97(2), fiaa249. https://doi.org/10.1093/femsec/fiaa249
  2. Ankit, Bordoloi, N., Tiwari, J., Kumar, S., Korstad, J., & Bauddh, K. (2020). Efficiency of Algae for Heavy Metal Removal, Bioenergy Production, and Carbon Sequestration. In R. N. Bharagava (Ed.), Emerging Eco-friendly Green Technologies for Wastewater Treatment (pp. 77–101). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1390-9_4
  3. Mazur, L. P., Cechinel, M. A. P., de Souza, S. M. A. G. U., Boaventura, R. A. R., & Vilar, V. J. P. (2018). Brown marine macroalgae as natural cation exchangers for toxic metal removal from industrial wastewaters: A review. Journal of Environmental Management, 223, 215–253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.05.086
  4. Adeleye, A. O., Nkereuwem, M. E., Omokhudu, G. I., Amoo, A. O., Shiaka, G. P., & Yerima, M. B. (2018). Effect of microorganisms in the bioremediation of spent engine oil and petroleum related environmental pollution. Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management, 22(2), 157–167. https://doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v22i2.1
  5. Ron, E. Z., & Rosenberg, E. (2014). Enhanced bioremediation of oil spills in the sea. Current Opinion in Biotechnology, 27, 191–194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copbio.2014.02.004
  6. Dudev, T., & Lim, C. (2014). Competition among Metal Ions for Protein Binding Sites: Determinants of Metal Ion Selectivity in Proteins. Chemical Reviews, 114(1), 538–556. https://doi.org/10.1021/cr4004665
  7. Lu, H., Diaz, D. J., Czarnecki, N. J., Zhu, C., Kim, W., Shroff, R., Acosta, D. J., Alexander, B. R., Cole, H. O., Zhang, Y., Lynd, N. A., Ellington, A. D., & Alper, H. S. (2022). Machine learning-aided engineering of hydrolases for PET depolymerization. Nature, 604(7907), 662–667. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04599-z
  8. Sheridan, E. A., Fonvielle, J. A., Cottingham, S., Zhang, Y., Dittmar, T., Aldridge, D. C., & Tanentzap, A. J. (2022). Plastic pollution fosters more microbial growth in lakes than natural organic matter. Nature Communications, 13(1), 4175. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31691-9
  9. Kim, H. T., Kim, J. K., Cha, H. G., Kang, M. J., Lee, H. S., Khang, T. U., Yun, E. J., Lee, D.-H., Song, B. K., Park, S. J., Joo, J. C., & Kim, K. H. (2019). Biological Valorization of Poly(ethylene terephthalate) Monomers for Upcycling Waste PET. ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 7(24), 19396–19406. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b03908
  10. Shahsavari, E., Rouch, D., Khudur, L. S., Thomas, D., Aburto-Medina, A., & Ball, A. S. (2021). Challenges and Current Status of the Biological Treatment of PFAS-Contaminated Soils. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.602040
  11. Seong, H. J., Kwon, S. W., Seo, D.-C., Kim, J.-H., & Jang, Y.-S. (2019). Enzymatic defluorination of fluorinated compounds. Applied Biological Chemistry, 62(1), 62. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13765-019-0469-6
  12. Kim, M. H., Wang, N., & Chu, K. H. (2014). 6:2 Fluorotelomer alcohol (6:2 FTOH) biodegradation by multiple microbial species under different physiological conditions. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 98(4), 1831–1840. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-013-5131-3
  13. González Henao, S., & Ghneim-Herrera, T. (2021). Heavy Metals in Soils and the Remediation Potential of Bacteria Associated With the Plant Microbiome. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2021.604216
  14. Kapahi, M., & Sachdeva, S. (2019). Bioremediation Options for Heavy Metal Pollution. Journal of Health & Pollution, 9(24), 191203. https://doi.org/10.5696/2156-9614-9.24.191203
Last updated: September 19, 2022 Back