Poly‐3‐Hydroxyalkanoates containing unsaturated repeating units produced by pseudomonas oleovorans

Poly‐3‐hydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) containing repeating units with terminal alkene substituents at the 3‐position were produced by Pseudomonas oleovorans grown with either 7‐octeneoic acid [OA()] alone, or 10‐undeceneoic acid [UND()] alone, or mixtures of UND() and either nonanoic acid (NA) or octanoic acid (OA). For the latter, the biomass and PHA yields decreased as the fraction of UND() increased in the mixed carbon substrates. Essentially all of the repeating units in the PHA obtained from cells grown with UND() alone contained terminal alkene groups, including 3‐hydroxy‐10‐undeceneoate, 3‐hydroxy‐8‐noneneoate, and 3‐hydroxy‐6‐hepteneoate units, but less than half of the units in the PHA from OA() had alkene substituents. The PHAs obtained from cells grown with various mixtures of UND() and either OA or NA were random copolymers, and the fraction of units with alkene substituents in these polymers increased in proportion to the fraction of UND() in the mixed carbon substrates.