Data and code for: What metagenomics cannot see: a polymer-specific sequence gap in plastic biodegradation

This deposit contains the data and code behind the manuscript "What metagenomics cannot see: a polymer-specific sequence gap in plastic biodegradation". The study analyses the public record of microbial plastic biodegradation compiled in PlasticDB and asks how much of the documented degradation is accompanied by a protein sequence that a homology search could use as a target. Documented degradation and deposited sequence are decoupled along polymer chemistry: polyethylene terephthalate accounts for 247 entries and 176 unique sequences, while polyolefins and polyvinyl chloride together account for 623 entries and 7, with none for polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride or high-density polyethylene. The shortfall is not explained by analytical evidence class, literature age or organism accessibility, and it is not that enzymes go unmentioned: an enzyme is named in 122 of the polyolefin and polyvinyl chloride entries, and 5.7 percent of those carry a sequence against 92.7 percent for polyethylene terephthalate. Running analysis.py on the included export regenerates every number, table and figure reported in the manuscript, including the statistics of Section 2.6 and Table S4. See README.md for the file inventory, the field definitions and the reproduction instructions. The record analysed is PlasticDB (Gambarini et al., 2022, https://doi.org/10.1093/database/baac008), retrieved on 10 September 2026 from the version last updated on 4 November 2025. Please cite PlasticDB alongside this deposit.