Bacteria store carbon sources down the road as polyesters under the condition of unsuitable for growth. The polyesters are referred to as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) and known as “biodegradable” plastics. In our laboratory, the system producing environment-friendly PHAs from the environmental pollutants such as PCBs by a single-step process, is going on constructing. To provide higher efficiency (for production) and greater value (for products) to the system, we have characterized fundamental mechanisms. We have investigated in detail individual functions and the capacity of metabolic pathways provided by the cells because the balance among polymerizing enzymes, granule stabilized proteins and depolymerizing enzyme is important. We report here electron microscopic analyses of the PHA granules produced by the mutants of 3 each factor.
PHA granules accumulated in the microbial cells
