PAZy: an expanded and actively maintained database of experimentally validated plastic-active enzymes.

PAZy now contains over 450 experimentally validated plastics-active enzymes, with expanded metadata, substrate coverage, and improved curation, enhancing enzyme discovery efforts.

• Why it matters: Accurate identification of enzymes that degrade plastics is crucial for developing sustainable solutions, but distinguishing experimentally verified enzymes from predicted ones remains a challenge.
• What they did: The team developed an expanded, manually curated relational database with detailed metadata, broader substrate coverage, and used large language models for activity data curation, accessible via a web interface and REST API.
• The result: PAZy offers a high-confidence, freely accessible resource that supports comparative analyses and enzyme discovery, facilitating research in enzymatic plastic degradation.