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Computational Molecular Biology
2013, Vol.3, No.3, 16-23 http://cmb.sophiapublisher.com
Research Report
Open Access
Identification of a Novel
phaC1
Gene from Native
Pseudomonas putida
KT2442
as a Key Gene for PHA Biosynthesis
Jamshid Raheb , Saeed Saadat , Fatemeh Nazari
National Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Tehran, Iran
Corresponding Author email: jamshid@nigeb.ac.ir;
Author
Computational Molecular Biology, 2013, Vol.3, No.3 doi: 10.5376/cmb.2013.03.0003
Copyright
© 2013 Raheb et al. This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
The global dependence on petroleum-derived plastics has increased dramatically over the years. They have harmful
effects on nature that leading scientists to attention to the biodegradable polymers. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a family of
polyhydroxy esters of 3, 4, 5 and 6 hydroxyalkanoic acids produced by a wide range of bacteria such as
pseudomonas
bacteria by
PHA synthetase gene, a key enzyme for PHA biosynthesis, as granules in the cytoplasm of the cells under growth limiting conditions
with carbon excess. In this study, PHA produced by native
Pseudomonas putida
strain was investigated by Methanolysis and FT-IR
methods. After proving the ability of bacteria to produce PHA, by using appropriate primers and the polymerase chain reaction, PHA
synthetase gene of the organism, was amplified, sequenced and compared to NCBI registered sequences. The results showed that the
bacteria is capable of producing PHA. The similarity of the sequenced gene with the other registered sequences of the NCBI site can
be 80 to 90 percent that showed new ORF, in this bacteria. Therefore, this gene was named
phaC1
. Increasing research on
biopolymers has been ongoing in both Europe and Japan and to some extent in the US. Private sector is the main funder of
biopolymer research in the EU. In conclusion, with the currently increased interest level and the resulted extensive research being
carried out in this area, PHAs are potentially emerging as the next generation of environmentally friendly materials with a wide range
of applications.
Keywords
Biodegradable polymers; Polyhydroxyalkanoates;
Pseudomonas putida
Introduction
Hydrocarbon wastes from petroleum-derived plastics
produce harmful toxic compounds during their
lengthened decomposition periods. Depleting natural
resources resulted from contemporary lifestyle and
overpopulation of the world demands rational,
efficient and sustainable use of environment potentials.
Short production/degradation cycle of environmentally
friendly plastic materials such as polyhydroxyalkanoic
acids (PHAs) reduces unfavorable wastes and
emissions (Koller et al., 2010; Levis and Barlaz, 2013).
Under nutrient-limited conditions, various bacteria
produce these carbon and energy storage polyesters
(Liu et al., 2013). These biopolymers are accumulated
as granules in bacterial cytoplasm when a carbon
source is provided in excess and one essential growth
nutrient is limited (Tanamool et al., 2013). PHAs are
optically active biopolyoxoesters composed of (R)
3-hydroxy fatty acids, representing a complex class of
biopolymers (Martínez et al., 2012). Hydroxyalkanoic
acids (HAs), monomers of polyhydroxyalkanoates, are
R-enantiomerically pure chemicals (Adkins et al.,
2012). Since PHAs are similar to petrochemical
polymers in physical properties, these bacterial
biodegradable thermoplastics are considered
promising alternatives for petro-chemically derived
plastics (Poli et al., 2011). There are two classes of
PHAs depending upon the carbon chain length of the
monomer units.
PHAs containing repeat-unit
monomers of 3 to 5 carbon atoms are classified as
short-chain-length (SCL-) PHAs. On the other hand,
Computational
Molecular Biology
Preferred citation for this article:
Raheb et al., 2013, Identification of a Novel
phaC1
Gene from Native
Pseudomonas putida
KT2442 as a Key Gene for PHA Biosynthesis, Computational
Molecular Biology, Vol.3, No.3 16-23 (doi: 10.5376/cmb.2013.03.0003)
Received: 06 Nov., 2013
|
Accepted: 05 Dec., 2013
|
Published: 26 Dec., 2013