https://video.igem.org/videos/watch/8cec93a5-f2fa-47d2-a262-7d6b88e5121f Title: PetaBite: Mapping Earth's Biodiversity to Discover Room-Temperature Plastic-Degrading Enzymes Description: iGEM Toronto presents PetaBite Check out our wiki at https://2026.igem.wiki/toronto/ Read through our engineering page content at https://gitlab.igem.org/2026/toronto/-/tree/main/src/content/wiki/project/engineering?ref_type=heads Project abstract: Plastic has become so abundant that its carbon content now exceeds that of all animals on Earth. Fortunately, nature offers an ecological solution with PETases, enzymes capable of degrading polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Previously, fewer than 500 validated sequences had been characterized, limiting humanity’s ability to discover variants suitable for industrial deployment. In response, we created the PETadex, the largest open-source database of plastic-degrading enzymes, by searching 27.3 million public sequencing datasets. This expanded the catalogue from 495 sequences to over 300 million naturally occurring homologs, unlocking unprecedented scale and diversity. PetaBite creates an integrated workflow to leverage the database. We rank candidates with a protein language model trained on the PETadex, screen them with a high-throughput copper-release assay in E. coli, and further test them in our low-cost open-source bioreactors. Our goal: to discover and validate room-temperature PETases that surpass current benchmarks and enable scalable microplastic degradation. Wiki | Official Page Thu, 29 Oct 2026 22:24:50 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://video.igem.org https://video.igem.org/client/assets/images/icons/icon-1500x1500.png https://video.igem.org/videos/watch/8cec93a5-f2fa-47d2-a262-7d6b88e5121f All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://video.igem.org/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.