Abstract
The effects of growth temperature and nutritional components on the synthesis of poly-3-hydroxybutyric acid, PHB, by filamentation-suppressed recombinant Escherichia coli XL1-Blue (pSYL107) were studied. After culturing XL1-Blue(pSYL107) for 48 hours in complex medium at 30$\circ$C, 7Al g/l of PHB could be obtained with the PHB content and PHB yield of 82% and 0.371 g PHB/g glucose, respectively. Lower concentration of PHB(3.2 g/l) was obtained when cultu- red at 37$\circ$C, which seemed to be due to the instability of this strain having amplified FtsZ activity. The PHB concentration of 3.75 g/l was obtained after culturing 60 hours in R medium supplemen- ted with 20 g/l glucose at 30$\circ$C, which was more than twice higher than that obtained with XL1-Blue(pSYL105). This suggested that the enhancement of PHB synthesis by suppressing filamenta- tion was more significant in a defined medium than complex medium. PHB synthesis could be further enhanced by supplementing a small amount of various complex nitrogen sources. When 5 g/l of beef extract was added to a defined medium, PHB concentration, PHB content, and PHB yield obtained after 60 hours of cultivation at 30$\circ$C were 7.46 g/l, 86%, and 0.375 g PHB/g glucose,respectively.
