There is a critical need to develop innovative and eco-friendly technologies to address the challenges of treating contaminants of emerging concern. This study aimed to develop a renewable biocatalyst that harnesses the cutinase, a versatile fungal hydrolase, for enzymatic degradation of parabens, a class of emerging environmental contaminants with known endocrine-disrupting effects, in water reclamation and reuse. A novel biocatalyst (named as SDFsC) was constructed by expressing the enzyme <i>Fusarium solani pisi</i> cutinase (FsC) on the cell surface of Baker's yeast <i>Sacchromycese cerevisiae</i> and demonstrated successful enzyme-mediated removal of parabens for the first time. Parabens with different side chain structures had different degradation rates by the SDFsC. The SDFsC preferentially degraded the parabens with relatively long alkyl or aromatic side chains. The structure-dependent degradability was in a good agreement with the binding energy between the active site of FsC and different parabens. In real wastewater effluent solution, the SDFsC effectively degraded 800 µg/L of propylparaben, butylparaben, and benzylparaben, either as a single compound or as a mixture, within 48 hours. The estrogenic activity of parabens was considerably reduced as the parent parabens were degraded into 4-hydroxybenzoic acid via hydrolysis pathway by the SDFsC. The SDFsC showed superior reusability and maintained 93% of its initial catalytic activity after six rounds of paraben degradation reaction. With the proof-of-concept demonstration of using SDFsC as a novel biocatalyst for degradation of parabens, similar biocatalytic treatment processes for a broader array of other contaminants could be developed in future work, opening up new opportunities of using enzyme biocatalysis as a green chemistry alternative to address more environmental challenges.

Biocatalytic degradation of parabens mediated by cell surface displayed cutinase

2019 Spring National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.