Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) Biopolymer Synthesis by Marine Bacteria of the Malaysian Coral Triangle Region and Mining for PHA Synthase Genes.

Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), a biodegradable and plastic-like biopolymer, has been receiving research and industrial attention due to severe plastic pollution, resource depletion, and global waste issues. This has spurred the isolation and characterisation of novel PHA-producing strains through cultivation and non-cultivation approaches, with a particular interest in genes encoding PHA synthesis pathways. Since sea sponges and sediment are marine benthic habitats known to be rich in microbial diversity, sponge tissues ( and ) and sediment samples were collected in this study from Redang and Bidong islands located in the Malaysian Coral Triangle region. PHA synthase () genes were identified from sediment-associated bacterial strains using a cultivation approach and from sponge-associated bacterial metagenomes using a non-cultivation approach. In addition, phylogenetic diversity profiling was performed for the sponge-associated bacterial community using 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid (16S rRNA) amplicon sequencing to screen for the potential presence of PHA-producer taxa. A total of three genes from the bacterial metagenome of and three genes from sediment isolates ( UMTKB-6, UMTKB-7, UMTKB-8) were identified. Produced PHA polymers were shown to be composed of 5C to C monomers, with previously unreported PHA-producing ability of the strain, as well as a 3-hydroxyvalerate-synthesising ability without precursor addition by the strain.