Isolation and characterization of bacterial polyhydroxybutyrate inclusions

Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is a carbon reserve found in some bacteria, and under nutrient limiting conditions accumulates intracellularly in the form of inclusion bodies. These inclusions contain proteins, and the PHB within the inclusions exists in an amorphous state. In this study a procedure to recover native PHB inclusions was developed, and the isolated inclusions were characterized using 13C NMR, western blotting, SDS-PAGE, atomic force microscopy, and fluorescence microscopy. A model for the structure of native PHB inclusions is proposed.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Kshetry, Nina

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Cho Kyun Rha.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35690

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35690