POLY-3-HYDROXYALKANOATES CONTAINING UNSATURATED REPEATING UNITS PRODUCED BY PSEUDOMONAS-OLEOVORANS

Poly-3-hydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) containing repeating units with terminal alkene substituents at the 3-position were produced by Pseudomonas oleovorans grown with either 7-octeneoic acid [OA(=)] alone, or 10-undeceneoic acid [UND(=)] alone, or mixtures of UND(=) and either nonanoic acid (NA) or octanoic acid (OA). For the latter, the biomass and PHA yields decreased as the fraction of UND(=) increased in the mixed carbon substrates. Essentially all of the repeating units in the PHA obtained from cells grown with UND(=) alone contained terminal alkene groups, including 3-hydroxy-10-undeceneoate, 3-hydroxy-8-noneneoate, and 3-hydroxy-6-hepteneoate units, but less than half of the units in the PHA from OA(=) had alkene substituents. The PHAs obtained from cells grown with various mixtures of UND(=) and either OA or NA were random copol ymers, and the fraction of units with alkene substituents in these polymers increased in proportion to the fraction of UND(=) in the mixed carbon substrates. (C) 1995 John Wiley and Sons, Inc.