IMPROVING PHA PRODUCTION BY DINAMIC ANALYSIS OF METABOLISM

Petrochemical plastic substitution by biopolymers is an non-controversial strategy to reduce the environmental impact of using those non-degradable materials; however, it is important to highlight that the whole processes for bio-alternatives development and production need to consider sustainability criteria (KOLLER, 2017). Into the process for biopolymers production, fermentation is a key stage, but not the unique, to attain sustainability and competitiveness. Some Issues for improving biopolymers -specifically polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA)- production are: using low-cost feedstocks, improving intracellular characteristics of selected strains, developing strategies for bioreactor operation (BLUNT et al., 2018), and adjusting polymer characteristics. Aforementioned issues have been addressed by traditional and modern approaches: prospecting from natural environments, extracellular modeling and optimization, and adjusting monomer supplies from carbon source (ALBUQUERQUE et al., 2011) are into the most applied traditional approaches; in the other way, metabolic flux analysis, novel molecular diagnostic techniques and enzyme evolution (TAGUCHI and DOI, 2004) are in the corner of modern approaches.
In the way to develop an industrial scale process for PHA production Biotechnology Institute at Universidad Nacional de Colombia has isolated and selected wild strains of Burkholderia cepacia and implemented several studies to define a sustainable and competitive process for PHA production from vegetable oil. Currently, our work considers dynamic analysis of metabolism as an approach to improve fermentative process.