title: The 'PHAome'.
abstract: Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a family of polyesters synthesized by bacteria. Similarly to the genome, transcriptome, and proteome (the entire array of nucleic acids and proteins present in a cell or population of cells at a given time), the PHA spectrum exhibits diverse and dynamic modifications - the 'PHAome' - reflecting not only by the diversity of monomers, homopolymers, random and block copolymers, functional and graft polymers, molecular weights, and combinations of the above, but also the ranges of PHAs with various molecular weights and monomer ratios that are present at a particular timepoint in a bacterial cell. Echoing the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) launched in 2011 to develop an infrastructure to accelerate advanced materials discovery and deployment, understanding the PHAome and ensuring an ample supply of PHAs based on it will promote the discovery of new properties and applications of this family of advanced materials.
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Education Key Lab of Bioinformatics, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China; Center for Nano and Micro Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Beijing Key Laboratory of Protein Therapeutics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. Electronic address: chengq@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Guo-Qiang
authors.initials: GQ
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Education Key Lab of Bioinformatics, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hajnal
mesh_terms: D040761:Biomimetic Materials / Q000138:chemical synthesis*; D020632:Halomonas / Q000378:metabolism*; D008970:Molecular Weight; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D054813:Polyhydroxyalkanoates / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000302:isolation & purification; D058105:Polymerization; D011549:Pseudomonas / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D054813:Polyhydroxyalkanoates
keywords: Materials Genome Initiative; PHA; PHAome; PHAomics; PHB; block copolymer; functional polymer; homopolymer; random copolymer