Production of Polyhydroxyalkanotes from Complex Polysaccharides

Global energy demand and environmental concerns have stimulated increasing efforts to produce bioenergy and biofuels directly from renewable resources. The production of petroleum alternative compounds like bioplastics from abundantly available renewable materials in nature such as cellulosic and algal biomass through consolidated bioprocessing is an innovative approach. Here we show the production of bioplastics polyhydroxylkanotes (PHA) by consolidated bioprocessing using a bacterium with ability to degrade complex polysaccharides such as agarose and xylan without pre-treatment. The association of the bacterium in coculture with another bacterium dynamically enhanced agarose degradation and PHA production from xylan. Consolidated bioprocessing of complex polysaccharides to PHA investigated in this study opens up new avenues of employment of pure and co-culture for efficient production of PHA.