P. lemoignei is named after the French microbiologist Maurice Lemoigne who first described poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) as a constituent of bacterial cells.
Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are polyesters that can be used to make biodegradable and biocompatible thermoplastics, attracting commercial interests with the growing awareness of sustainability.
P. lemoignei can encode five kinds of extracellular PHA depolymerase, all of which hydrolyze PHB at high specific activities.
[5] The PHA depolymerases of P. lemoignei demonstrate a stable expression and secretion in recombinant Escherichia coli.
[6] The processing sites of the precursors in E. coli were the same as that in P. lemoignei, and similar substrate specificities were determined for the wild-type and the recombinant proteins.