Recent strategies for efficient production of polyhydroxyalkanoates by micro-organisms

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are polyesters accumulated by many bacteria under unbalanced growth conditions, and have been used to meet the various demands in areas of agriculture, medicine, and materials especially belong to a rapidly expanding area of biomedical research. Unfortunately, the high production cost than the traditional synthetic materials has greatly limited the wide application of PHA. Here, we systematically summarized recent progress in production of PHAs and a series of optimization strategies such as supplying renewable carbon substrates, developing better bacterial strains, optimization of fermentation processes, engineering new pathways and etc., were applied to reduce production cost, therefore providing many new ideas and methods for the production of PHAs in economically viable processes. This is believed to be a comprehensive report to show different strategies and methods for low-cost production of PHAs. Further studies are still needed to make PHAs more and more economically viable to meet a wide range of applicability.