{"entity": "researcher", "timestamp": "2026-08-20T20:50:18.033Z", "family": "Lopez\u2010Lorenzo", "given": "Ximena", "initials": "X", "orcid": "0000-0002-4708-9861", "affiliations": ["Department of Fibre and Polymer Technology KTH Royal Institute of Technology  Teknikringen 50\u201358 100\u200944 Stockholm Sweden", "School of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health Science for Life Laboratory KTH Royal Institute of Technology  Tomtebodav\u00e4gen 23 171\u200965 Solna Sweden"], "links": {"self": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/49eec96b36fd4880b09564c0b7688932.json"}, "display": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/49eec96b36fd4880b09564c0b7688932"}}, "publications": [{"entity": "publication", "iuid": "a4860a0099d04b25bc0f711027397904", "links": {"self": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/publication/a4860a0099d04b25bc0f711027397904.json"}, "display": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/publication/a4860a0099d04b25bc0f711027397904"}}, "title": "Degradation of PET microplastic particles to monomers in human serum by PETase.", "authors": [{"family": "Lopez-Lorenzo", "given": "Ximena", "initials": "X", "orcid": "0000-0002-4708-9861", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/49eec96b36fd4880b09564c0b7688932.json"}}, {"family": "Hueting", "given": "David", "initials": "D"}, {"family": "Bosshard", "given": "Eliott", "initials": "E"}, {"family": "Syr\u00e9n", "given": "Per-Olof", "initials": "PO", "orcid": "0000-0002-4066-2776", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/b035f26bd71e42f9942f9a4943ed0d1a.json"}}], "type": "journal article", "published": "2024-09-11", "journal": {"title": "Faraday Discuss", "issn": "1364-5498", "volume": "252", "issue": "0", "pages": "387-402", "issn-l": null}, "abstract": "More than 8 billion tons of plastic waste has been generated, posing severe environmental consequences and health risks. Due to prolonged exposure, microplastic particles are found in human blood and other bodily fluids. Despite a lack of toxicity studies regarding microplastics, harmful effects for humans seem plausible and cannot be excluded. As small plastic particles readily translocate from the gut to body fluids, enzyme-based treatment of serum could constitute a promising future avenue to clear synthetic polymers and their corresponding oligomers via their degradation into monomers of lower toxicity than the material they originate from. Still, whereas it is known that the enzymatic depolymerization rate of synthetic polymers varies by orders of magnitude depending on the buffer and media composition, the activity of plastic-degrading enzymes in serum was unknown. Here, we report how an engineered PETase, which we show to be generally trans-selective via induced fit docking, can depolymerize two different microplastic-like substrates of the commodity polymer polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into its non-toxic monomer terephthalic acid (TPA) alongside mono(2-hydroxyethyl)terephthalate (MHET) in human serum at 37 \u00b0C. We show that the application of PETase does not influence cell viability in vitro. Our work highlights the potential of applying biocatalysis in biomedicine and represents a first step towards finding a future solution to the problem that microplastics in the bloodstream may pose.", "doi": "10.1039/d4fd00014e", "pmid": "38864456", "labels": [], "xrefs": [], "notes": [], "created": "2026-08-20T09:27:49.535Z", "modified": "2026-08-20T09:27:49.633Z"}, {"entity": "publication", "iuid": "1fb121142bc844809f57c4726a2fd03a", "links": {"self": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/publication/1fb121142bc844809f57c4726a2fd03a.json"}, "display": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/publication/1fb121142bc844809f57c4726a2fd03a"}}, "title": "Fast Depolymerization of PET Bottle Mediated by Microwave Pre-Treatment and An Engineered PETase.", "authors": [{"family": "Guo", "given": "Boyang", "initials": "B", "orcid": "0000-0001-5510-1392", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/be843859e5a34c66b2c914c6f2bb955f.json"}}, {"family": "Lopez-Lorenzo", "given": "Ximena", "initials": "X", "orcid": "0000-0002-4708-9861", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/49eec96b36fd4880b09564c0b7688932.json"}}, {"family": "Fang", "given": "Yuan", "initials": "Y"}, {"family": "B\u00e4ckstr\u00f6m", "given": "Eva", "initials": "E"}, {"family": "Capezza", "given": "Antonio Jose", "initials": "AJ"}, {"family": "Vanga", "given": "Sudarsan Reddy", "initials": "SR"}, {"family": "Fur\u00f3", "given": "Istv\u00e1n", "initials": "I"}, {"family": "Hakkarainen", "given": "Minna", "initials": "M", "orcid": "0000-0002-7790-8987", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/9d855814ea154871b096568c3e1d66a6.json"}}, {"family": "Syr\u00e9n", "given": "Per-Olof", "initials": "PO", "orcid": "0000-0002-4066-2776", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/b035f26bd71e42f9942f9a4943ed0d1a.json"}}], "type": "journal article", "published": "2023-09-22", "journal": {"title": "ChemSusChem", "issn": "1864-564X", "volume": "16", "issue": "18", "pages": "e202300742", "issn-l": null}, "abstract": "Recycling plastics is the key to reaching a sustainable materials economy. Biocatalytic degradation of plastics shows great promise by allowing selective depolymerization of man-made materials into constituent building blocks under mild aqueous conditions. However, insoluble plastics have polymer chains that can reside in different conformations and show compact secondary structures that offer low accessibility for initiating the depolymerization reaction by enzymes. In this work, we overcome these shortcomings by microwave irradiation as a pre-treatment process to deliver powders of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) particles suitable for subsequent biotechnology-assisted plastic degradation by previously generated engineered enzymes. An optimized microwave step resulted in 1400 times higher integral of released terephthalic acid (TPA) from high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), compared to original untreated PET bottle. Biocatalytic plastic hydrolysis of substrates originating from PET bottles responded to 78 % yield conversion from 2 h microwave pretreatment and 1 h enzymatic reaction at 30 \u00b0C. The increase in activity stems from enhanced substrate accessibility from the microwave step, followed by the administration of designer enzymes capable of accommodating oligomers and shorter chains released in a productive conformation.", "doi": "10.1002/cssc.202300742", "pmid": "37384425", "labels": [], "xrefs": [], "notes": [], "created": "2026-08-20T06:31:57.604Z", "modified": "2026-08-20T06:31:57.734Z"}, {"entity": "publication", "iuid": "c7f0be383e3244a38fe4fa8c44712ccd", "links": {"self": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/publication/c7f0be383e3244a38fe4fa8c44712ccd.json"}, "display": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/publication/c7f0be383e3244a38fe4fa8c44712ccd"}}, "title": "Front Cover: Fast Depolymerization of PET Bottle Mediated by Microwave Pre\u2010Treatment and An Engineered PETase (ChemSusChem 18/2023)", "authors": [{"family": "Guo", "given": "Boyang", "initials": "B", "orcid": "0000-0001-5510-1392", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/be843859e5a34c66b2c914c6f2bb955f.json"}}, {"family": "Lopez\u2010Lorenzo", "given": "Ximena", "initials": "X", "orcid": "0000-0002-4708-9861", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/49eec96b36fd4880b09564c0b7688932.json"}}, {"family": "Fang", "given": "Yuan", "initials": "Y"}, {"family": "B\u00e4ckstr\u00f6m", "given": "Eva", "initials": "E"}, {"family": "Capezza", "given": "Antonio Jose", "initials": "AJ"}, {"family": "Vanga", "given": "Sudarsan Reddy", "initials": "SR"}, {"family": "Fur\u00f3", "given": "Istv\u00e1n", "initials": "I"}, {"family": "Hakkarainen", "given": "Minna", "initials": "M", "orcid": "0000-0002-7790-8987", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/9d855814ea154871b096568c3e1d66a6.json"}}, {"family": "Syr\u00e9n", "given": "Per\u2010Olof", "initials": "P", "orcid": "0000-0002-4066-2776", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/b035f26bd71e42f9942f9a4943ed0d1a.json"}}], "type": "journal-article", "published": "2023-09-22", "journal": {"title": "ChemSusChem", "issn": "1864-564X", "volume": "16", "issue": "18", "issn-l": null}, "abstract": null, "doi": "10.1002/cssc.202301238", "pmid": null, "labels": [], "xrefs": [], "notes": [], "created": "2026-08-20T06:32:06.636Z", "modified": "2026-08-20T06:32:06.715Z"}, {"entity": "publication", "iuid": "3da30a4e62cf4a5abf5e34759d377acc", "links": {"self": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/publication/3da30a4e62cf4a5abf5e34759d377acc.json"}, "display": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/publication/3da30a4e62cf4a5abf5e34759d377acc"}}, "title": "Whole\u2010cell Mediated Carboxylation of 2\u2010Furoic Acid Towards the Production of Renewable Platform Chemicals and Biomaterials", "authors": [{"family": "Lopez\u2010Lorenzo", "given": "Ximena", "initials": "X", "orcid": "0000-0002-4708-9861", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/49eec96b36fd4880b09564c0b7688932.json"}}, {"family": "Asem", "given": "Heba", "initials": "H"}, {"family": "Stamm", "given": "Arne", "initials": "A"}, {"family": "Subramaniyan", "given": "Sathiyaraj", "initials": "S"}, {"family": "Hakkarainen", "given": "Minna", "initials": "M", "orcid": "0000-0002-7790-8987", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/9d855814ea154871b096568c3e1d66a6.json"}}, {"family": "Syr\u00e9n", "given": "Per\u2010Olof", "initials": "P", "orcid": "0000-0002-4066-2776", "researcher": {"href": "https://publications-affiliated.scilifelab.se/researcher/b035f26bd71e42f9942f9a4943ed0d1a.json"}}], "type": "journal-article", "published": "2023-03-22", "journal": {"title": "ChemCatChem", "issn": "1867-3880", "volume": "15", "issue": "6", "issn-l": null}, "abstract": null, "doi": "10.1002/cctc.202201483", "pmid": null, "labels": [], "xrefs": [], "notes": [], "created": "2026-08-20T06:31:01.098Z", "modified": "2026-08-20T06:31:01.242Z"}]}