Molecular analysis of Brevibacillus brevis as polyethylene biodegradation agents

Brevibacillus brevis is one of the microbes known as a remediation agent for plastic products, especially polyethylene. Polyethylene is a synthetic plastic group that is thermoplastic, so it is widely used for various industrial activities. Polyethylene tends to be difficult to degrade naturally in the environment so that it becomes one of the wastes that require special handling in the management process. In this study, the molecular identification of Brevibacillus brevis, which is known to have the ability to degrade polyethylene, was carried out by using in silico analysis. From the results of molecular identification, it is known that the total length of the Brevibacillus brevis genome is 6,726,998 bp and consists of 6,189 genes capable of expressing functional proteins. Brevibacillus brevis also has the ClpP gene, a group of genes responsible for decomposing hydrocarbon monomers. The ClpP gene is a group of genes with the same conserved domain found in the Bacillus group. The presence of this gene is thought to be the basis for the similarity of Brevibacillus brevis with the Bacillus group because both have good survival skills under stress and lack of nutrition.