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Bioplastic Production In Cyanobacteria And Consensus Degenerate Pcr Probe Design, Courtney Edward Lane

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Cyanobacteria show much promise in reducing biodegradable thermoplastic production costs; however, most currently characterized strains are ill-equipped to do so. The result of Objective I produced a high-throughput assay designed to discover existing cyanobacterial strains and rapidly characterize them as PHA-producers or potential PHA-producers. This assay will play an instrumental role in the attainment of a novel cyanobacteria environmental isolate capable of accumulating high levels of PHA naturally. Objective II produced an open source computer program which dramatically speeds the design of similar assays for any arbitrary genetic screening purpose. The program is not limited to this implementation alone. In …