Plastic materials and water sources actively select and shape wastewater plastispheres over time

Highlights

● Wastewater MPs exhibited resistomes and therefore health threats.

● High density of alkB gene indicates both HDPE and PET can be utilized by microbes.

● Plastics and waters actively selected and shaped the plastispheres over time.

● A broader phylogenetic spectrum of MHET-degrading microorganisms was annotated.

Abstract

The daily use of plastics presents a serious pollution issue due to their extremely slow degradation. Microplastics and the biofilm that grows on plastics (i.e., the plastisphere) are important subsets of plastic wastes. Many studies have been conducted to reveal the structures of the plastispheres, the driving factors for the formation of the plastisphere, and the ability of the plastispheres to degrade plastics in a variety of water bodies. However, the plastispheres related to wastewater are understudied. In this study, we used a microcosmic strategy to study the evolution of the plastispheres associated with microplastics (MPs) over time in wastewater. We found that plastic materials and water sources did not actively select and shape the plastispheres at an early stage, but the active selection for a unique niche of the plastisphere occurred after 14 d of growth. In addition, we confirmed that the alkB gene was densely present, and metagenomics showed some additional chemical reactions, which suggests that MPs are consumed by the microbes in the plastispheres. Additionally, metagenomics identified some metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) associated with high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The identification of HDPE-associated MAGs and PET-associated MAGs further supports the notion that the selection for a unique niche of the plastisphere is driven by plastic materials and water sources (in this study, after 14 d of growth). Our discoveries bring new views on the behavior of the wastewater-associated plastisphere, especially how long it takes a wastewater plastisphere to form.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Microplastics / Whole-genome metagenomic sequencing / Plastisphere / Plastic degradation / MHETase

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Acknowledgements

Our research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2021YFA1202500), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 42177357), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Research Foundation (China) (No. 2021A1515012191), and the Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Committee (China) (No. JCYJ20210324104412033). We thank the Center for Computational Science and Engineering at the Southern University of Science and Technology (China) (SUSTech) and the core research facilities at SUSTech for providing excellent resources and services. Moreover, we thank Dr. Chuanlun Zhang from the Department of Ocean Science and Engineering at SUSTech for lending QuantStudio qPCR.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-022-1580-1 and is accessible for authorized users.

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