Increased sedimentation of a Pseudomonas–Saccharomyces microbial consortium producing medium chain length polyhydroxyalkanoates

Abstract

Abstract Concerns about feasibility, separability, settleability, efficiency once hampered studies on polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) production, which mainly focused on single strain microorganism or activated sludge rather than artificial microbial consortia. Here, a medium chain length PHAs (mcl-PHAs) producing Pseudomonas–Saccharomyces consortium with xylose as the main substrate was studied. Mcl-PHAs accumulation increased from 12.69 mg·L−1 to 152.3 mg·L−1 without any optimization method. The presence of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, though in a relatively low concentration, improved the sedimentation of cell mass of the mixed culture by 60%. Reasons for better sedimentation of the consortium were complex: first, the length of Pseudomonas putida increased two to three times in the consortium; second, the positive surface charge of P. putida was neutralized by S. cerevisiae; third, the adhesion proteins on the surface of S. cerevisiae interacted with the P. putida.