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Metabolic Engineering for Microbial Production and Applications of Copolyesters Consisting of 3‐Hydroxybutyrate and Medium‐Chain‐Length 3‐Hydroxyalkanoates
Author(s) -
Zou Xiang Hui,
Chen GuoQiang
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
macromolecular bioscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.924
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1616-5195
pISSN - 1616-5187
DOI - 10.1002/mabi.200600186
Subject(s) - polyhydroxyalkanoates , copolyester , metabolic engineering , monomer , biocompatibility , polyester , biodegradation , polymer , tissue engineering , materials science , protein engineering , chemistry , chemical engineering , organic chemistry , bacteria , enzyme , biomedical engineering , medicine , genetics , biology , engineering
Abstract Poly(hydroxyalkanoate)s (PHAs) are a class of microbially synthesized polyesters that combine biological properties, such as biocompatibility and biodegradability, and non‐bioproperties such as thermoprocessability, piezoelectricity, and nonlinear optical activity. PHA monomer structures and their contents strongly affect the PHA properties. Using metabolic engineering approaches, PHA structures and contents can be manipulated to achieve controllable monomer and PHA cellular contents. This paper focuses on metabolic engineering methods to produce PHA consisting of 3‐hydroxybutyrate (3HB) and medium‐chain‐length 3‐hydroxyalkanoates (3HA) in recombinant microbial systems. This type of copolyester has mechanical and thermal properties similar to conventional plastics such as poly(propylene) and poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET). In addition, pathways containing engineered PHA synthases have proven to be useful for enhanced PHA production with adjustable PHA monomers and contents. The applications of PHA as implant biomaterials are briefly discussed here. In the very near term, metabolic engineering will help solve many problems in promoting PHA as a new type of plastic material for many applications.