THE AMORPHOUS STATE OF BACTERIAL POLY[(R)-3-HYDROXYALKANOATE] INVIVO

Poly[(R)-3-hydroxyalkanoate]s (PHAs) are bacterial storage polyesters, which are accumulated by a range of micro-organisms as intracellular granules. In contrast to the isolated PHA, the nascent polymer in the granules does not crystallize but remains amorphous at ambient temperature. A lot of studies have been devoted to this phenomenon and all claimed the in vivo presence of a highly effective plasticizer. In contrast, this paper demonstrates that the native granules do not contain a plasticizer and that the amorphous state of in vivo PHA can be explained simply by straightforward crystallization kinetics.