Abstract
Extracting polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) polymer from bacterial cells often involves harsh conditions, including use of environmentally harmful solvents. We evaluated different detergents under various conditions to extract PHA from Ralstonia eutropha and Escherichia coli cells. Most detergents tested recovered highly pure PHA polymer from cells in amounts that depended on the percentage of polymer present in the cell. Detergents such as linear alkylbenzene sulfonic acid (LAS-99) produced a high yield of high purity polymer, and less detergent was needed compared to the amount of SDS to produce comparable yields. LAS-99 also has the advantage of being biodegradable and environmentally safe. Chemical extraction of PHA with detergents could potentially minimize or eliminate the need to use harsh organic solvents, thus making industrial PHA production a cleaner technology process.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank Mr. John Quimby and Ms. Karen Pepper for their contributions to this manuscript. This work was supported by a grant from the government of Malaysia and the Malaysian Office of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI). The result of this grant, the Malaysia-MIT Biotechnology Partnership Program (MMBPP), is a collaboration between MIT, SIRIM Berhad, Universiti Putra Malaysia, and Universiti Sains Malaysia. The authors would like to thank the members of this program for their collegial collaborations.
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Yang, YH., Brigham, C., Willis, L. et al. Improved detergent-based recovery of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). Biotechnol Lett 33, 937–942 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-010-0513-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-010-0513-4