Bacteria Convert Plastic Waste into Parkinson’s Disease Treatment

As plastic pollution becomes a major environmental concern, researchers have developed a new process that enables the transformation of used bottles into a valuable medicinal compound used to treat Parkinson’s disease.

Producing Levodopa Using E. coli

Every year worldwide, Parkinson’s disease is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. This neurodegenerative condition is characterized by motor disorders (tremors, stiffness…) as well as cognitive, sleep, and mood disturbances.

Levodopa is a compound that doctors prescribe at all stages of the disease. Largely derived from tyrosine, an amino acid found in many foods, including beans and tomatoes, it constitutes a first-line treatment to relieve symptoms.

In work published in the journal Nature Sustainability, researchers from the University of Edinburgh succeeded in obtaining it with the help of the bacterium E. coli.

Once the polyethylène terephthalate (PET) is broken down into terephthalic acid, its molecules were converted into levodopa thanks to genetically modified bacterial strains capable of triggering a cascade of enzymatic reactions. According to the team, this approach is more sustainable than conventional methods: it reduces dependence on fossil fuels while contributing to PET recycling, whose global production stands at around 50 million tonnes per year.

A Breakthrough That Opens the Door to More

According to Stephen Wallace, from the University of Edinburgh, this breakthrough “highlights the potential of biology to rethink how we treat our waste” calls for further advances.

“Plastic waste poses a major environmental problem, but at the same time represents a vast untapped carbon source,” he notes. “By using bacteria to transform them into an essential medicine, we show that they are valuable resources serving human health.”

Last year, researchers had used such organisms to transform plastic into acetaminophen.