A bacterium common in hospitals can digest biodegradable medical plastics, enabling it to persist on devices and potentially heighten infection risks.
Andrei Ionescu reports for Earth.com
In short:
- Researchers found that Pseudomonas aeruginosa can degrade polycaprolactone (PCL), a plastic widely used in medical devices like sutures and stents, using an enzyme called Pap1.
- The bacterium not only survives by consuming the plastic but also uses its fragments to strengthen biofilms that resist antibiotics and immune responses.
- Similar enzymes were identified in other hospital pathogens, suggesting a broader threat to various plastics used in clinical settings.
Key quote:
“Plastic is everywhere in modern medicine, and it turns out some pathogens have adapted to degrade it, and we need to understand the impact this has on patient safety.”
— Ronan McCarthy, professor at Brunel University London
Why this matters:
This discovery redefines the battlefield of hospital-acquired infections, particularly in high-risk areas like intensive care units. As infections grow harder to treat and antibiotic resistance rises, any edge that bacteria gain could escalate both health risks and medical costs. That risk looms larger if common plastics like polyurethane or polyethylene terephthalate prove vulnerable too. The notion that “sterile” materials might be feeding disease prompts a reconsideration of how we design, monitor, and sanitize the medical environment.
Related: Rethinking the environmental impact of medical devices
