The idealized chemical reaction is: where n is the number of monomers in the polymer chain, though a trace amount of the PET breaks down instead to bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET).

[3] The first PETase was discovered in 2016 from Ideonella sakaiensis strain 201-F6 bacteria found from sludge samples collected close to a Japanese PET bottle recycling site.

[9] The discovery of PETase from I. sakaiensis provides a potential solution to the world’s amassing plastic; however, naturally occurring enzymes are limited in their degradation abilities due to instability, low activity, and expression levels, which ultimately drive the need for improvement if they are to be used for large-scale industrial applications.

[11] Moreover, the β1-β2 connecting loop of the enzyme may also be a future target for improved thermal stability due to its flexibility and distance from the active site.

[1] Laboratory experiments showed that chimeric proteins that artificially link a MHETase and a PETase outperform similar mixtures of free enzymes.