African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 2 (6), pp. 147–149, June 2003

ISSN 1684-5315  © 2003 Academic Journals

Production of poly-b-hydroxybutyrate (PHB)  and differentiation of  putative Bacillus mutant strains by  SDS-PAGE of total cell protein

Hikmet Katırcıoğlu^1*, Belma Aslım², Zehra Nur Yüksekdað², Nazime Mercan³, Yavuz Beyatlı²

^1*Department of  Biology Education, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey

²Department of  Biology, Faculty of Science, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey

³Department of  Biology, Faculty of Science, Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey

^*Corresponding author; Fax: (90) 312 2228483, E-mail: katircioglu@yahoo.com, hturk@gazi.edu.tr

Accepted 16 May 2003  

In this study, the putative mutant strains of Bacillus megaterium Y6, B. subtilis K8, B. sphaericus X3 and B. firmus G2 were studied for their poly-b-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) production capacities. Mutations were induced by using UV light, acriflavin and 5-bromourasil. Total cell proteins were extracted from 59 strains and compared using SDS-PAGE. For each strain, percentage yield of PHB according to cell dry weight was determined in a range of 1.46-63.45%. PHB production of  8 mutant strains were found to increase in comparison with parental strains. However, no increase in PHB production of mutant strains of B. sphaericus X3 was found. It was also determined that the protein profiles of the mutant strains with high PHB yield generally differed from the protein profiles of parental strains.

Key words: Bacillus, poly-b-hydroxybutyrate, PHB, total cell protein.