Production of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) from Pseudomonas plecoglossicida and its application towards cancer detection

The present work focuses on the fermentative production of Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) from an unexplored organism Pseudomonas plecoglossicida for this biopolymer production. The produced biopolymer was characterized using FTIR, NMR and GCMS analysis. As Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) exhibit a high level of biocompatibility and biodegradability, they are used for several biomedical applications. A simple and rapid cancer detection assay was developed using the PHB extracted from P. plecoglossicida. Breast cancer cells (T47D) were taken as a test sample, with the normal epithelial cells (PCS-600-010) as control. The assay checked for the ability of cells to attach to the surface of the PHB sheet. Primarily a docking study was made to understand the interaction of specific target proteins present in breast cancer cells (BRCA1) with the PHB molecules, where the surface adherence property was clearly denoted. Further authentication was done using the contact angle detection test which elucidated that only cancer cells showed the adherence effect, and normal cells did not exhibit such adherence property towards the PHB sheets. Hence, the produced biopolymer will likely be helpful in developing a novel cancer detection tool, by studying the surface adherence property of the cell towards the PHB sheet.