Exploitation of microbial biodiversity of the plastisphere

The actual fate of plastic wastes în the environment is not always understood. This is particularly true considering the different polymers that may enter into the system. Convention plastic are more persistent due to the high stability to chemical and physical stressors, but also bioplastic cannot be considered completely harmless when not properly disposed. Surely, nature is not just standing, suffering their presence, but may react and evolve. The microbial community may indeed activate peculiar metabolisms to face this problem. Several researches have reported different microorganisms, isolated in soil, compost or aquatic system, with degrading skills against plastics. În particular, fungi can colonize all matrices (soil, water and air), adapt to extreme environment, tolerate and transform several pollutants, including plastic polymers. The choice of the best performig strains is a often underestimated critical choice, because în many cases, particular secondary metabolisms are not conserved along the genera or the species, but are strain-dependent. The isolation source may indeed play a major role. The study of the plastisphere and its metabolome is therefore fundamental for the development of several biotechnological applications. This work aims to analyze the mycobiota associated with microplastics in a terrestrial and marine environment and investigate their degrading skills against plastic polymers of interest.