polyhydroxyalkanoate is possibly a kind of polyhydroxy acid, but, two are not exactly same. Of course a possibility that two may used as mixed term. Hence, you should clarify this by discuss with project manager.

Different. C. necator is a classic polyhydroxyalkanoate producer for bio plastics. Going back a few years it was called Alcaligenes eutrophus and it could accumulate PHA up to about 90% dry weight. So seek out papers from the 1970s onwards.

Perhaps I do not understand this question, but to me "alkanoate" is an ester of carboxylic acid. Therefore, the answer is no, you cannot say that polyhydroxy acid is polyhydroxyalkanoate.

Dear Melson Jones thank you for your interesting technical question. For a definition of polyhydroxyalkanoates please have a look at the respective Wikipedia entry at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyhydroxyalkanoates

As you can see, polyhydroxyalkanoates are the esters of polyhydroxy acids. Please also have a look at the following potentially useful article entitled

Poly(hydroxyalkanoate) Production by Cupriavidus necator from Fatty Waste Can Be Enhanced by phaZ1 Inactivation

(see attached pdf file)

Poly-hydroxy acid and Poly-hydroxy alkanoate are two different classes of the compounds. One is acid and alkanoate is an ester.

Dear Melson Jones

They are close but from to different chemical classes, Polyhydroxy acid (Acid) while Polyhydroxyalkanoate is a group of polyester( Ester) polymers.