Isolation of a Medium Chain Length Polyhydroxyalkanoic Acids Degrading Bacterium, Janthinobacterium lividum

Isolation of a Medium Chain Length Polyhydroxyalkanoic Acids Degrading Bacterium, Janthinobacterium lividum

Medium-chain length polyhydrexyalkanoic acids (MCL-PHAs) degrading bacterium was isolated from the soil. The bacterium was identified as Janthinobacterium lividum by its biochemical properties, cell membrane fatty acids composition, and 16S rDNA sequence analysis. The bacterium showed a similarity of 0.911 with J. lividum according to the cell membrane fatty acids analysis and a similarity of 97% in the 16S rDNA requence analysis. Culture supernatant of the bacterium skewed the highest depolymerase activity toward polyhydroxynonanoic acid (PHN) that did not degrade the poly-$\beta$-hydroxybutyric acid (PHB). The esterase activity was also detected with p-nitrophenyl (PNP) esters of fatty acids such as PNP-dodecanoic PNP-dodecanoic acid, PNP-decanoic acid, and PNP-hexanoic acid.