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Biosynthesis of Polyhydroxyalkanoates
CHEN Guoqiang, WU Qiong, CHEN Jinchun
Abstract
Many bacteria are able to synthesize polyhydroxyalkanoates, abbreviated as PHA, as carbon and energy storage compounds. PHA with over 90 different monomer structures has been reported and the number keeps increasing. The piezoelectricity, non-linear optical activity, biocompatibility and biodegradability of PHA have offered promising applications in areas such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, smart materials and degradable packaging. Various microorganisms obtained from nature, genetic engineering and mutations have been used for microbial production of PHA as biodegradable plastics. In fact, PHA synthesizing bacteria can be easily found in various locations, especially oil-contaminated soils. Many bacterial strains possessing the ability to synthesize PHA with various monomers have been isolated from oil-contaminated soils. In molasses-contaminated soil, 40% of the isolated bacteria were capable of growing rapidly and synthesizing PHA at the same time. It seems that nature has provided endless numbers of novel PHA synthesizing strains.
Keywords
polyhydroxybutyrate; PHB; polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA); biopolymer; polyester
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