Title: Generation and Reuse of Plastic Monomers Using Plant-Produced Recombinant Enzymes

An excellent process to generate a biobased product with little environmental impact is to breakdown a single-use product like plastics into its monomers and reuse those monomers to recreatethe original product. If non-biodegradable plastics could be reused as high-quality plastics positiveimpacts on the environment could be realized. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is accumulating inthe environment at a staggering rate. Recycling of PET plastics in current methods requires themelting and reformation of a new plastic causing loss of function in the product. If PET isdegraded to its monomers it could be repolymerized into new plastic without the reduction inquality. Industrial enzymes could fulfill this function.Objectives: GreenLab Inc. proposes to use the corn kernel biofactory to commercialize plasticdegrading enzymes. PHL7 identified and cloned from a compost bin can degrade PET intomonomers at a commercially viable rate. The corn biofactory will produce this new enzyme.Effort: The maize-optimized PHL7 gene vectors will be moved into A. tumefaciens and transientlytransformed into maize embryos. A high-throughput assay will be developed to test activity of thesesmall amounts of enzyme. Active enzyme vectors will be transformed stably into corn for Phase IIdevelopment.Results and commercial applications: Phase I is the first step in this process by introducing thePETase transiently into corn prior to full scale stable expression and use. We will partner with aplastic recycling/reuse company to commercialize the enzyme. This low-cost sustainableproduction platform is a major component of producing biobased plastics!