Structure-guided discovery and rational design of a new poly(ethylene terephthalate) hydrolase from AlphaFold protein structure database

Enzymatic degradation offers a promising eco-friendly solution to plastic pollution, especially for polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Current efforts have focused on screening PET-degrading enzymes from microbial and metagenomic sources and obtaining superior candidates with a limited set of templates. More efficient PET hydrolases are required for PET-waste biorefinery. Here, using a structure-guided bioinformatic workflow, we identified a novel PET hydrolase, LSPET4, from Micromonospora sp. HM5–17, by screening the AlphaFold protein structure database. LSPET4 features a unique carbohydrate-binding module (CBM) and a distinctive linear substrate binding conformation. The intrinsic CBM in LSPET4 exhibited superior binding ability on PET surfaces and enhanced PET hydrolysis performance compared to the previously reported most effective CBM3. Through rational protein engineering focused on stabilizing and modifying the linear substrate binding conformation, we developed LSPET4^M6 (D130P, N127F, Y96F, Q209E, A238K, D241S), a variant that achieved a 38.79-fold improvement in activity compared to the wild type, and was comparable to the reported most effective PET hydrolase derived from IsPETase, FAST-PETase at 45 ℃. This variant also demonstrated effectiveness in degrading various commercial PET materials, including PET food sealing films, PET strawberry boxes, and PET tomato boxes used in the food industry. This study not only provides a new template for protein engineering endeavors to create efficient biocatalysts for PET recycling but also offers an effective enzyme discovery approach to uncover enzymes of interest from the AlphaFold protein structure database.