Scientists use bacteria to turn plastic waste into paracetamol | Drugs
Bacteria can be used to transform plastic waste into analgesics, have found researchers, opening the possibility of a more sustainable process to produce medicines.
Chemists have discovered that E coli can be used to create paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen, from a material produced in the laboratory from plastic bottles.
“People do not realize that paracetamol is currently coming from oil,” said Professor Stephen Wallace, principal author of the University of Edinburgh. “What this technology shows is by merging chemistry and biology in this way for the first time, we can make paracetamol more durable and clean plastic waste at the same time.”
Writing in the journal Nature Chemistry, Wallace and his colleagues report how they discovered that a type of chemical reaction called Losten rearrangement, a process that has never been seen in nature, was biocompatible. In other words, it could be carried out in the presence of living cells without harming them.
The team has discovered when it has taken polyethylene (PET) terephture – a type of plastic often found in food packaging and bottles – and, using lasting chemical methods, converted it into a new material.
When the researchers incubated this material with an harmless E Coli strain, they found that it had been converted into another substance known as Paba in a process which had to involve a rearrangement of loss.
Above all, although Losten rearrangement generally implies severe laboratory conditions, it occurred spontaneously in the presence of the coli, the researchers discovering that it was catalyzed by phosphate in the cells themselves.
The team adds that PABA is an essential substance whose bacteria need growth, in particular DNA synthesis, and is generally manufactured in the cell from other substances. However, the coli used in experiments has been genetically modified to block these paths, which means that bacteria had to use pet material.
Researchers say that the results are exciting because they suggest that plastic waste can be converted into biological matters.
“It’s a way to make plastic waste heard completely,” said Wallace.
The researchers then genetically modified the coli more, inserting two genes – one of the mushrooms and one of the soil bacteria – which allowed bacteria to convert the paba into paracetamol.
The team says that by using this coli form, they were able to transform the starting equipment based on PET into paracetamol in less than 24 hours, with low emissions and a yield of up to 92%.
Although other works are necessary to produce paracetamol in this way at commercial levels, the results could have a practical application.
“It allows, for the first time, a lane of plastic waste in paracetamol, which is not possible to use biology alone, and it is not possible to use chemistry alone,” said Wallace.
