Engineered E. coli turns kimchi-radish waste into bioplastic in lab study

Researchers at the World Institute of Kimchi engineered E. coli to produce biodegradable poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) using radish-processing hydrolyzate as its sole feedstock. A strain with gltA and acnA deletions reached polymer content equal to 71.95% of dry cell weight, a 78% increase over the parental strain. In fed-batch fermentation, the process reached 5.75 grams per liter and 75.60% polymer content by dry cell weight. The work was published in Bioresource Technology.