Abstract：
The abundance of synthetic polymers has become an ever-increasing environmental threat in the world. The excessive utilization of plastics leads to the accumulation of such recalcitrant pollutants in the environment. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) kits, face masks, and gloves made up of single-use items has resulted in the massive generation of plastic biomedical waste. As secondary pollutants, microplastic particles (<5 mm) are derived from pellet loss and degradation of macroplastics. Therefore, urgent intervention is required for the management of these hazardous materials. Physicochemical approaches have been employed to degrade synthetic polymers, but these approaches have limited efficiency and cause the release of hazardous metabolites or by-products into the environment. Therefore, bioremediation is a proper option as it is both cost-efficient and environmentally friendly. On the other hand, plants evolved lignocellulose to be resistant to destruction, whereas insects, such as wood-feeding termites, possess diverse microorganisms in their guts, which confer physiological and ecological benefits to their host. Plastic and lignocellulose polymers share a number of physical and chemical properties, despite their structural and recalcitrance differences. Among these similarities are a hydrophobic nature, a carbon skeleton, and amorphous/crystalline regions. Compared with herbivorous mammals, lignocellulose digestion in termites is accomplished at ordinary temperatures. This unique characteristic has been of great interest for the development of a plastic biodegradation approach by termites and their gut symbionts. Therefore, transferring knowledge from research on lignocellulosic degradation by termites and their gut symbionts to that on synthetic polymers has become a new research hotspot and technological development direction to solve the environmental bottleneck caused by synthetic plastic polymers.
摘要：
合成聚合物的丰富已成为世界上日益增加的环境威胁。塑料的过度利用导致这种顽固污染物在环境中的积累。例如,在COVID-19大流行期间，对个人防护装备(PPE)套件的需求前所未有，口罩,由一次性物品制成的手套导致了塑料生物医学废物的大量产生。作为二次污染物，微塑料颗粒（<5毫米）来自颗粒损失和大型塑料的降解。因此,这些危险材料的管理需要紧急干预。物理化学方法已被用来降解合成聚合物，但是这些方法的效率有限，并导致有害代谢物或副产品释放到环境中。因此,生物修复是一种适当的选择，因为它既具有成本效益又对环境友好。另一方面,植物进化了木质纤维素，可以抵抗破坏，而昆虫,比如以木材为食的白蚁，他们的肠道里有各种各样的微生物，赋予宿主生理和生态效益。塑料和木质纤维素聚合物具有许多物理和化学性质，尽管它们的结构和顽固差异。这些相似之处包括疏水性，碳骨架，和无定形/结晶区域。与食草哺乳动物相比，白蚁中的木质纤维素消化是在常温下完成的。这种独特的特征对于白蚁及其肠道共生体的塑料生物降解方法的开发非常感兴趣。因此,从白蚁及其肠道共生体降解木质纤维素的研究向合成聚合物的研究转移,已成为解决合成塑料聚合物带来的环境瓶颈的新的研究热点和技术发展方向。
