EVALUATION OF THE BIODEGRADATION CAPACITY OF POLYETHYLENE TEREPHTHALATE (PET) AND POLYPROPYLENE (PP) BY A CONSORTIUM OF FUNGAL SPECIES FROM THE RIBEIRA LANDFILL, SÃO LUÍS, MARANHÃO.

The high population growth brought with it modernizations that generate numerous environmental disorders, as in the case of polymers that remain for many years in the middle. In this way, it is of great importance to seek alternatives that accelerate the degradation process of these materials in nature, such as the biodegradation performed by fungi. Thus, this work aims to analyze the biodegradation capacity of polymeric materials by the consortium and isolated from fungal species of Ribeira landfill, São Luís, Maranhão. For this, PET and PP weights were obtained and separately placed in Petri dishes containing mycelium of fungi in which they were incubated for 10, 25, 75, and 150 days. At each time, the weight losses of the polymers were calculated. In addition, the extraction of total proteins was performed, which were separated by one-dimensional electrophoresis and predicted by comparative bioinformatics. The results demonstrate that the fungi present in the air had greater biodegradation capacity for both polymers. Regarding the individual degradation of fungi, A. flavus presented a higher biodegradation potential for the polymer PP, with a reduction of 11.05%. For PET polymer, the largest reduction was observed in A. terreus with 5.05%. Protein analysis showed that for all fungi tested in contact with polymers there was the presence of differentially expressed protein bands compared to the control group. Among these may represent different proteins, such as xylanases, proteases, and lipases. These results demonstrate that the fungi from the Ribeira landfill have biotechnological potential and maybe an alternative in polymer biodegradation.