Abstract:With the impending fossil fuel crisis, the search for and development of alternative chemical/material substitutes is pivotal in reducing mankind's dependency on fossil resources.

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Styrene is a toxic pollutant commonly found in waste effluents from plastic processing industries. We herein identified and characterized microorganisms for bioconversion of the organic eco-pollutant styrene into a valuable biopolymer medium-chain-length poly(hydroxyalkanoate) (mcl-PHA). Twelve newly-isolated styrene-degrading Pseudomonads were obtained and partial phaC genes were detected by PCR in these isolates. These isolates assimilated styrene to produce mcl-PHA, forming PHA contents between 0.05±0.00 and 23.10±3.25% cell dry mass (% CDM). The best-performing isolate was identified as Pseudomonas putida NBUS12. A genetic analysis of 16S rDNA and phaZ genes revealed P. putida NBUS12 as a genetically-distinct strain from existing phenotypically-similar bacterial strains. This bacterium achieved a final biomass of 1.28±0.10 g L−1 and PHA content of 32.49±2.40% CDM. The extracted polymer was mainly comprised of 3-hydroxyhexanoate (C6 ), 3-hydroxyoctanoate (C8 ), 3-hydroxydecanoate (C10 ), 3-hydroxydodecanoate (C12 ), and 3-hydroxytetradecanoate (C14 ) monomers at a ratio of 2:42:1257:17:1. These results collectively suggested that P. putida NBUS12 is a promising candidate for the biotechnological conversion of styrene into mcl-PHA.