Production of Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) from CO2 via pH-Stat Jar Cultivation of an Engineered Hydrogen-Oxidizing Bacterium Cupriavidus necator

Abstract

The copolyester of 3-hydroxybutyrate (3HB) and 3-hydoxyhexanoate (3HHx), PHBHHx, is a biodegradable plastic characterized by high flexibility, softness, a wide process window, and marine biodegradability. PHBHHx is usually produced from structurally related carbon sources, such as vegetable oils or fatty acids, but not from inexpensive carbon sources such as sugars. In previous studies, we demonstrated that engineered strains of a hydrogen-oxidizing bacterium, Cupriavidus necator, synthesized PHBHHx with a high cellular content not only from sugars but also from CO2 as the sole carbon source in the flask culture. In this study, the highly efficient production of PHBHHx from CO2 was investigated via pH-stat jar cultivation of recombinant C. necator strains while feeding the substrate gas mixture (H2/O2/CO2 = 80:10:10 v/v%) to a complete mineral medium in a recycled-gas, closed-circuit culture system. As a result, the dry cell mass and PHBHHx concentration with the strain MF01/pBPP-ccrMeJAc-emd reached up to 59.62 ± 3.18 g·L−1 and 49.31 ± 3.14 g·L−1, respectively, after 216 h of jar cultivation with limited addition of ammonia and phosphate solutions. The 3HHx composition was close to 10 mol%, which is suitable for practical applications. It is expected that the autotrophic cultivation of the recombinant C. necator can be feasible for the mass production of PHBHHx from CO2.