Investigation of potential rubber-degrading bacteria and genes involved.

COVID-19 pandemic has generated high demand for natural rubber gloves (NR) leading to crucial issues of rubber waste and waste management such as burning, dumping, stockpiling, discarding waste in landfills. Hence, rubber biodegradation by microorganisms is an alternative solution to the problem. The biodegradation method is environmentally friendly but normally extremely slow. Numerous microorganisms can degrade NR as a source of carbon and energy. In this study, Rhodococcus pyridinivorans KU1 was isolated from the consortium CK from previous study. The 40% rubber weight loss was detected after incubated for 2 months. The bacterial colonization and cavities on the surface of rubber were identified using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The result demonstrated the critical degradation of the rubber surface, indicating that bacteria can degrade rubber and use it as their sole carbon source. The result of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) revealed a gene that is 99.9% identical to lcp which is responsible for poly (cis-1,4-isoprene) degradation. The results from Meta16S rRNA sequencing showed that the microbial communities were slightly shifted during the 2-month degradation, depending on the presence of monomers or oligomers appeared during the degradation process. The majority of species were soil bacteria such as phylum Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Firmicutes. Members of Pseudoxanthomonas seemed to be the dominant degraders throughout the degradation.