I am growing H. psuedoflava DSM 1084 autotrophically. When I compare cell dry weight produced to CO2 consumed, I find that more CO2 is consumed than expected.
I wonder if this is because my bacteria is accumulating an intracellular storage compound like PHA. It's been suggested to me, though, that such intracellular compounds would not necessarily affect CDW that much if PHA and biomass had similar carbon oxidation states. Therefore, I would like to know:
For better discussion I give some questions on your experiments.
1. Did you measure CO2 in the bottle?
2. Did you mean more CDW or less CDW than expected?
If less CDW it's due by excreted organic matter after fixation and these organic matters were dissolved in the media.
The accumulation of PHA in cells can add to dry cell weight values and depending on growth conditions the PHA content can be as high as 80% w/w of cell dry weight.
PHA granules that accumulate in cells are excellent at blocking the passage of light. This will will affect OD measurement which is a measure of light blocking by the cell culture.
Having a variable PHA content will affect your OD/CDW correlation due to both these factors.
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