Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), an intracellular energy and carbon storage polymer, can be accumulated in activated sludge in substantial quantities under wastewater dynamic treatment (i.e., substrate feast-famine) conditions. However, its influence on hydrogen production has never been investigated before. This study therefore evaluated the influences of PHA level and composition in waste activat...

The impact of landfills on the environment has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years due to confounding effects climate change and water scarcity. There is an urgent need reduce from greenhouse gas emissions that cause change, provide effective treatment solutions for waste, thereby diverting it landfills. With estimated 80 million tonnes plastic waste entering world’s oceans annually,...

The thermophile Cupriavidus sp. strain S-6 accumulated polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) from glucose at 50°C. A 9.0-kbp EcoRI fragment cloned from the genomic DNA of Cupriavidus sp. S-6 enabled Escherichia coli XL1-Blue to synthesize PHB at 45°C. Nucleotide sequence analysis showed a pha locus in the clone. The thermophilic polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthase (PhaC(Csp)) shared 81% identity with mesop...

Background Previously we demonstrated that an entire bacterial operon (the PRN operon) is expressible in plants when driven by the Tomato -yellow-leaf-curl-virus (TYLCV) -derived universal vector IL-60.Petroleum-derived plastics are not degradable, and are therefore harmful to the environment. Fermentation of bacteria carrying operons for polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) produces degradable bioplas...

Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) synthases catalyze the conversion of 3-hydroxybutyryl coenzyme A (HBCoA) to PHB with a molecular mass of 1.5 MDa. The class III synthase from Allochromatium vinosum is a tetramer of PhaEPhaC (each 40 kDa). The polymerization involves covalent catalysis using C149 of PhaC with one PHB chain per PhaEC dimer. Two mechanisms for elongation have been proposed. The first inv...

Legionella pneumophila CsrA plays a crucial role in the life-stage-specific expression of virulence phenotypes and metabolic activity. However, its exact role is only partly known. To elucidate how CsrA impacts L. pneumophila metabolism we analysed the CsrA depended regulation of metabolic functions by comparative 13C-isotopologue profiling and oxygen consumption experiments of a L. pneumophila...

Wild-type Ralstonia eutropha H16 produces polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) as an intracellular carbon storage material during nutrient stress in the presence of excess carbon. In this study, the excess carbon was redirected in engineered strains from PHB storage to the production of isobutanol and 3-methyl-1-butanol (branched-chain higher alcohols). These branched-chain higher alcohols can directly su...