Researchers have cracked the conundrum of engineering microbes capable of synthesizing thermally stable plastics that contain aromatic rings.
Because aromatic rings lend polymers their rigidity, strength, and thermal stability, microbial-synthesized polymers containing these units would go a long way toward replacing petroleum-dependent chemical synthesis of plastics like polyethylene terephthalate (PET) or polystyrene. But it has been difficult to produce these types of plastics via fermentation, in part because aromatic units are toxic to microbes.
Sang Yup Lee, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and the head of the Metabolic Engineering Research Laboratory at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), overcame this challenge. He and his colleagues used Escherichia coli to synthesize poly[D-phenyllactate(PhLA)], a polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) that could be used in drug delivery.
“Ultimately, we successfully developed a microbial strain equipped with the genetic and enzymatic machinery necessary to...
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