Crispr-Engineered Microbes For Enhanced Biodegradation Of Recalcitrant Pollutants A Genomic Approach To Environmental Remediation

Abstract

Purpose: The goals of this research are as follows: Compare the efficiency of using CRISPR-engineered microbes to degrade unabated pollutants. These include plastics, heavy metals, pesticides, and PCBs, with those of naturally occurring microbes. This research sought to establish if genetic manipulations done by CRISPR-Cas9 could improve the degradation potential of these microbes, especially under environmental conditions that often exist in polluted sites where the pollutants are difficult to remove. Objective: The main question answering the study was concerned with identifying the extent to which the modifications in microbial strains through CRISPR enhanced biodegradation efficiency compared to the natural strains. The second goal was to determine the effect of pollutant types on microbial degradation as well as to study the correlation between the number of CRISPR modifications and biodegradation efficiency. Methodology: Altogether, 220 responses were obtained by experimental testing of microbial strains, either native or genetically modified by the CRISPR technology. The efficiency of biodegradation was determined through the process of quantifying the decrease of mass of the pollutant for a certain duration in laboratory trials. Chemicals that were analyzed embraced plastics, heavy metals, pesticides and poly-chlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The tests used in the study included the ANOVA test, Kruskal and Wallis test, regression test, and chi-square test. The statistical analysis was performed with SPSS version 23, and the data visualization of those results in the form of a box plot for ANOVA & KW, a scatter plot with a regression line for regression analysis and a bar plot for the Chi-Square test. These figures then provided a better comparison between biodegradation performances according to different microbial strains and the types of pollutants. The regression analysis also brought into light the use of graphical representations of the biodegradation efficiency against the number of CRISPR modifications. Results: The analysis based on ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis tests showed that the efficiency of degrading contaminants by natural microbial strains and those with the CRISPR /Cas9 biobank was comparable (F-statistic = 0. 60, p-value = 0. 617) and Kruskal-Wallis statistic = 1. 88, p-value = 0. 598). Biodegradation efficiency appears to have a very weak and statistically insignificant upward trend with the number of CRISPR modifications installed, according to the regression equation. 55 (p = 0. 426) and a value of r-squared equaling to 0. 0029. Consequently, using the Chi-Square test (χ² = 16. 31, p-value = 0. 431), there was no significant relationship between pollutant priority and the current categorization of biodegradation efficiency levels present in the study. These statistical results were further supported by graphical representations: In boxplots, no significant variation for microbial strains was again observed, while scatter plot revealed poor association of CRISPR modifications with efficiency level, and bar plot again demonstrated comparable biodegradation performance of different pollutants. Practical Implications: The study implied that enormous-scale microbes for Bioremediation of environmental pollution might not be possible using the CRISPR technique as it is currently; hence, further enhancement is needed. The repeated failure to enhance the efficiency of biodegradation across the different CRISPR-modified strains shows that the application of genetic engineering alone cannot provide a solution to the broad issues of environmental degradation. This research also stresses the need to determine the factors affecting microbial efficiency and suggests the need for increased research on the applicability of CRISPR-based technology to the environment. Novelty: Thus, this study fills the gap in the existing literature regarding the practical applicability of microbes engineered with CRISPR technology for biodegradation purposes, thus having a significant value in the development of novel CRISPR-based environmental biotechnologies. Even though a good proportion of the current literature is oriented towards laboratory success, this research complements this real-world assessment by evaluating the ability of these microbes to treat hard-core pollutants. Besides, it offers significant information about the drawbacks of the biodegradation processes by relying on CRISPR modifications and the importance of specific gene editing. Conclusion: The study concludes that even though the efficiently of genetically modified microbes using CRISPR could be enhanced in a laboratory environment, the system is still unable to outperform the natural strains in the degradation of recalcitrant pollutants. The findings suggest that there is a need to optimize genetic manipulations and environmental conditions in order to employ CRISPR-Cas9-based bioremediation strategies successfully. There is a need for better management of microbial traits for better performance in the environment and more so for methods of enhancing the stability of CRISPR-modified organisms in various environments in the future.