Several insects are known to metabolize hydrocarbon-derived plastics, such as polyethylene and polystyrene.
The role of P450 enzymes has been demonstrated in Galleria mellonella and Zophobas atratus (aka Z. morio) by production of the enzyme in Pichia pastoris. The recombinant yeast cell lysate was layered on polyethylene film to initiate degradation. Oxidation of the polyethylene film was shown by a method called attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectra. For PE, this method measured the integrated areas of the carbonyl (1800–1600 cm−1), carbon–oxygen (1150–1000 cm−1), or hydroxyl band (3600–3100 cm−1) relative to the methylene (CH) scissoring band (1500–1420 cm−1) as the reference peak.
The P450 are :
Galleria mellonella CYP6B89 (called GP04) and CYP6AB184 (called 13G08) Son et al., 2024
Zophobas atratus (morio) CYP345C4 (called CYP6k1-ZP10) and CYP6BQ66 (called CYP6a23-ZP15) Son et al., 2026
Directed evolution of CYP6B89 resulted in an enzyme carrying four mutations (G114A,F188K,A310T,E400H) that had increased polyethylene oxidation activity.
RNAi of CYP345C4 confirmed the role of this P450 in polyethylene oxidation in vivo.