Engineering of artificial microbial consortia of Ralstonia eutropha and Bacillus subtilis for poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) copolymer production from sugarcane sugar without precursor feeding

Ralstonia eutropha is a well-known microbe reported for polyhydroxyalkonate (PHA) production, and unable to utilize sucrose as carbon source. Two strains, Ralstonia eutropha H16 and Ralstonia eutropha 5119 were co-cultured with sucrose hydrolyzing microbes (Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus amyloliquefaciens) for PHA production. Co-culture of B. subtilis: R. eutropha 5119 (BS:RE5) resulted in best PHA production (45% w/w dcw). Optimization of the PHA production process components through response surface resulted in sucrose: NH4Cl:B. subtilis:R. eutropha (3.0:0.17:0.10:0.190). Along with the hydrolysis of sucrose, B. subtilis also ferments sugars into organic acid (propionic acid), which acts as a precursor for HV monomer unit. Microbial consortia of BS:RE5 when cultured in optimized media led to the production of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (P(3HB-co-3HV) with 66% w/w of dcw having 16 mol% HV fraction. This co-culture strategy overcomes the need for metabolic engineering of R. eutropha for sucrose utilization, and addition of precursor for copolymer production.