Abstract: The present invention relates to the fields of life sciences, micro-organisms and degradation of hydrocarbon chains such as plastics or synthetic polymers. Specifi-cally, the invention relates to an isolated specific enzyme, or a fragment thereof, wherein said enzyme or fragment is capable of degrading a hydrocarbon chain, and to a micro-organism or a host cell comprising the enzyme or a fragment thereof. Also, the present invention relates to a polynucleotide encoding the enzyme or fragment thereof, and to an expression vector or plasmid comprising the polynucleotide of the present invention. And still, the present invention relates to use of the enzyme, fragment, micro-organism, host cell, polynucleotide, expression vector or plasmid of the present invention for degrading a hydrocarbon chain; to a method of degrading a hydrocarbon chain with the specific enzyme or a fragment thereof; and to a method of producing the enzyme or fragment thereof of the present invention.