{"id":29356,"date":"2025-01-12T12:59:23","date_gmt":"2025-01-12T07:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=29356"},"modified":"2025-04-09T02:27:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T20:57:51","slug":"esterase-enzyme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/esterase-enzyme\/","title":{"rendered":"Esterase Enzyme"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>About Esterase Enzyme:\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is produced by soil bacteria <strong>Sulfobacillus acidophilus.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The esterase enzyme was structurally characterised using X-ray crystallography.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It remains active for about a month and catalyzes the <strong>degradation of diethyl hexyl phthalate<\/strong> (DEHP) plasticizer with significant efficiency.<\/li>\n<li>The enzyme breaks down the DEHP plasticizer into two products \u2014 <strong>mono-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (MEHP) and 2-ethyl hexanol.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This esterase enzyme, along with other enzymes identified by their group previously can convert high molecular weight phthalate <strong>plasticizers into water and carbon-dioxide.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Researchers used three other enzymes in sequence are from <strong>Comamonas testosteroni bacteria.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Putting all the five enzymes into bacteria will speed up the degradation process.<\/li>\n<li>The enzymes, whether used for degradation or not, will remain active only for a short time. But once integrated into bacteria, the <strong>enzymes remain active for a longer time and the bacteria <\/strong>can be used continuously for degrading the plasticizers.<\/li>\n<li>But when the enzymes are used without integrating into bacteria, a fresh batch of enzymes needs to be produced to continue the degradation process.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What are Plasticizers?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>These are chemicals <strong>added to plastics and personal care products<\/strong> to enhance flexibility and shine, and are commonly found in items such as baby toys, shampoos, soaps, and food containers.<\/li>\n<li>Plasticizers can be <strong>absorbed through the skin<\/strong>, making them a direct <strong>threat to human health.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1: What chemical is used as a plasticizer?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Phthalates and adipates are the most commonly used plasticizers. Trimellitates are used in wire and cable and certain other applications where a relatively higher service temperature is required.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/iit-roorkee-uses-bacterial-enzymes-to-degrade-plasticizers\/article69085296.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Esterase Enzyme  is produced by soil bacteria Sulfobacillus acidophilus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":29357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}