PlasticEnz: An integrated database and screening tool combining homology and machine learning to identify plastic-degrading enzymes in meta-omics datasets

Anna Krzynowek; Jasper Snoeks; Karoline Faust

doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013892

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

PlasticEnz: An integrated database and screening tool combining homology and machine learning to identify plastic-degrading enzymes in meta-omics datasets

Anna Krzynowek,

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research, Laboratory of Molecular Bacteriology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2259-9344

⨯
Jasper Snoeks,

Roles Software

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research, Laboratory of Molecular Bacteriology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
⨯
Karoline Faust

Roles Funding acquisition, Investigation, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: karoline.faust@kuleuven.be

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research, Laboratory of Molecular Bacteriology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7129-2803

⨯

PlasticEnz: An integrated database and screening tool combining homology and machine learning to identify plastic-degrading enzymes in meta-omics datasets

Anna Krzynowek,
Jasper Snoeks,
Karoline Faust

Published: January 26, 2026
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013892

About the Authors

Anna Krzynowek

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research, Laboratory of Molecular Bacteriology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2259-9344

Jasper Snoeks

Roles Software

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research, Laboratory of Molecular Bacteriology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Karoline Faust

Roles Funding acquisition, Investigation, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: karoline.faust@kuleuven.be

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research, Laboratory of Molecular Bacteriology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7129-2803

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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Plastics
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Polymers
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Hidden Markov models
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Neural networks
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Machine learning
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Metagenomics
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Ceramics
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Sequence alignment
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