Structural Insights of Poly(Butylene Adipate-Co-Terephthalate) Depolymerases

Poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate), PBAT, is one of the most popular plastics nowadays and also becoming a large burden to the environment when PBAT waste was accumulated. Biodegradation of PBAT is an environmentally friendly method to treat PBAT waste. In the past two decades, couples of microbial strains or mixed strains have been chemically characterized. From which, many PBAT depolymerases have been isolated and further structurally determined. In this review, we focused on reviewing the PBAT depolymerases that have been structurally characterized, including lipases, esterases, and cutinases. We also discussed which shape of the substrate-binding tunnels is beneficial for recognizing and decomposing polymer chains of PBAT, which would be an important guidance to direct the designation of PBAT depolymerases.