Isolation and Characterization of Bacteria that Produce Polyhydroxybutyrate Depolymerases

Isolation of environmental bacterial strains with diverse metabolic properties such as antibiotic production, sulfide oxidation, and the ability to use different nutrient sources is a common undergraduate lab experience. This article describes a useful protocol for the detection and isolation of bac...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Emily A. Egusa, Daniel J. Edwards, MyLo L. Thao, Larry L. Kirk, Larry F. Hanne
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: American Society for Microbiology 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/bb6bc98a58404358a1802c1f9987c843
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Isolation of environmental bacterial strains with diverse metabolic properties such as antibiotic production, sulfide oxidation, and the ability to use different nutrient sources is a common undergraduate lab experience. This article describes a useful protocol for the detection and isolation of bacteria that can degrade the common carbon storage biopolymer poly (3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB). The procedure utilizes a low nutrient media supplemented with insoluble PHB that allows for the easy, visible detection of strains that produce extracellular PHB degrading enzymes. This method can be used to determine the percent of culturable bacteria from various environments that can degrade PHB. Further, PHB degrading exoenzyme activity can be monitored from pure cultures by: (1) Growing cells in broth, (2) inducing with PHB, and (3) measuring activity of supernatant with a UV/Vis spectrophotometer. The enzymatic breakdown of PHB presents an opportunity to expose students to the concept of using biodegradable plastics as a solution to the global plastic waste problem.