Polyhydroxyalkanoic acid compositions and methods for generating same
AssigneeNewlight Technologies, LLC
InventorsMarkus Donald Herrema, Kenton Kimmel
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Abstract
Embodiments of the invention relate to the microbial production of polyhydroxyalkanoic acids, or polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), from substrates which cannot be used as a source of carbon and/or energy for microbial growth or PHA synthesis and which have microbial and environmental toxicity. According to one embodiment of the invention, a process for the production of PHA is provided wherein an enzyme such as methane monooxygenase is used to convert volatile organic compounds into PHA through the use of microorganisms that are unable to use volatile organic compounds as a source of carbon for growth or PHA production.
Claims20
A polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) composition comprising:
- (a) a polyhydroxyalkanoate,
- (b) cell components from one or more methane-monooxygenase (MMO) microorganisms (MMO-microorganisms) that use MMO to catalyze oxidation of organic compounds, and
- (c) one or more PHA-synthesizing microorganisms, wherein
- said one or more MMO-microorganisms are capable of oxidizing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into MMO-oxidized forms of the VOCs,
- said one or more PHA-synthesizing microorganisms are capable of using the MMO-oxidized forms of the VOCs as a source of carbon for PHA production, and wherein
- said one or more MMO-microorganisms and said one or more PHA-synthesizing microorganisms are different microorganisms.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.