López Teijeiro, AdriánBarreiro Piñeiro, NataliaEibes González, Gemma MaríaMartínez Costas, José Manuel2025-06-042025-06-042025-05-30Journal of Hazardous Materials Volume 495, 5 September 2025, 138789ls Volume 495, 5 September 2025, 138789https://hdl.handle.net/10347/41980The accumulation of plastics in the environment has become a serious concern for the entire society. In recent years, enzyme-based biodegradation has emerged as a promising and sustainable strategy for the recycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), one of the most widely used polyester plastics. However, the translation of these technologies to the industrial field faces several underexplored challenges, including the immobilization and reusability of the biocatalysts. Here, we present the use of IC-Tagging as a novel one-step methodology for the “in cellulo” self-immobilization of the benchmark PET-degrading enzyme LCCICCG in protein nanospheres. The immobilized enzyme showed to be active against soluble substrates and exhibited improved thermal resistance and long-term storage stability, retaining 58 % of relative activity after 3 months at room temperature. Immobilized LCCICCG also demonstrates remarkable reusability, with minor activity loss up to 10 reuse cycles. Most importantly, nearly complete depolymerization (>90 %) of various untreated amorphous post-consumer PET materials was achieved at a wide range of temperatures (50–70 °C) by removing the products and reusing the enzyme repeatedly. Furthermore, reutilization led to almost full degradation of two consecutive batches of post-consumer PET in 6 days, outperforming all immobilized biocatalysts reported at laboratory scale. Overall, IC-Tagging emerges as a promising and versatile platform for the production, immobilization and reutilization of top-performing PET hydrolases, contributing to sustainable management of plastic waste.eng© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)Plastic biodegradationPost-consumer PETPET hydrolaseLCCICCGEnzyme immobilizationEnzyme reutilizationjournal article10.1016/j.jhazmat.2025.1387891873-3336open access