Azo dyes are the main synthetic colourant used in the textile industry for a wide range of products, such as clothing, upholstery, makeup, tattoo ink, and more. These dyes are well known to be a safe and stable colourant, however when they break down in guts of organisms, they take on dangerous properties. In industry, leftover dye effluent is often not properly disposed of or removed during water treatment which results in the accumulation of azo dyes in water bodies. It is at this point that they are ingested, broken down and excreted as products that have been found to be mutagenic and carcinogenic yet no effort has been made to start disposing of them more responsibly. Our project uses synthetically modified organisms that produce enzymes for the degradation and detoxification of Azo Dyes.
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