title: Chemical Modification of Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) for the Preparation of Hybrid Biomaterials.
abstract: Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are biopolyesters produced by bacteria as intracellular granules under metabolic stress conditions. Many carbon sources such as alkanes, alkenes, alcohols, sugars, fatty acids can be used as feedstock and thus a wide variety of polyesters and monomer units can be potentially synthetized. The work presented here describes the process to chemically modify such biopolymers in order to render them readily available for the preparation of bio-molecular conjugates as promising new classes of biocompatible biomaterials. Such hybrid biomaterials belong to the rapidly growing class of biocompatible polymers, which are of great interest for medical and therapeutic applications. In this work, the biosynthesis of a new PHA homopolymer and the chemical modification, an epoxidation reaction, are described.
authors.affiliation: HES-SO Valais, Institute of Life Technologies, Route du Rawyl 47, CH-1950 Sion 2, Switzerland. marc.mathieu@hevs.ch.
authors.forename: Mònica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bassas-Galià
authors.affiliation: HES-SO Valais, Institute of Life Technologies, Route du Rawyl 47, CH-1950 Sion 2, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Adolfo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gonzalez
authors.affiliation: HES-SO Valais, Institute of Life Technologies, Route du Rawyl 47, CH-1950 Sion 2, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Fabrice
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Micaux
authors.affiliation: HES-SO Valais, Institute of Life Technologies, Route du Rawyl 47, CH-1950 Sion 2, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Vanessa
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gaillard
authors.affiliation: HES-SO Valais, Institute of Life Technologies, Route du Rawyl 47, CH-1950 Sion 2, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Umberto
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Piantini
authors.affiliation: HEIG-VD, Laboratory of Applied NanoSciences, CH-1401 Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schintke
authors.affiliation: HES-SO Valais, Institute of Life Technologies, Route du Rawyl 47, CH-1950 Sion 2, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zinn
authors.affiliation: HES-SO Valais, Institute of Life Technologies, Route du Rawyl 47, CH-1950 Sion 2, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mathieu
mesh_terms: D001672:Biocompatible Materials / Q000737:chemistry*; D004852:Epoxy Compounds / Q000737:chemistry; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D054813:Polyhydroxyalkanoates / Q000737:chemistry*; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D016958:Pseudomonas putida / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D004852:Epoxy Compounds; D054813:Polyhydroxyalkanoates; D011108:Polymers