Plastic degradation by insect hexamerins: Near-atomic resolution structures of the polyethylene-degrading proteins from the wax worm saliva.

Plastic waste management is a pressing ecological, social, and economic challenge. The saliva of the lepidopteran larvae is capable of oxidizing and depolymerizing polyethylene in hours at room temperature. Here, we analyze by cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) 's saliva directly from the native source.

The virtual microbiome: A computational framework to evaluate microbiome analyses.

Microbiomes have been the focus of a substantial research effort in the last decades. The composition of microbial populations is normally determined by comparing DNA sequences sampled from those populations with the sequences stored in genomic databases. Therefore, the amount of information available in databanks should be expected to constrain the accuracy of microbiome analyses.