The cells cultivated were in situ pasteurized and the cul-
ture broth was then centrifuged at 14500 for 20 min
(Inula Sorvall RC-5B Refrigerated Superspeed centrifuge),
frozen and lyophilized for 24 h in all cases. After degreas-
ing the biomass by shaking overnight with ethanol, the
polymer was extracted from the cells via chloroform, by
stirring 1 g of freeze-dried cell in 100 ml of chloroform
for 48 h and purified by re-precipitation with 10 volumes
of ice-cold methanol (Hahn et al. 1995). The alternative
polymer extraction method was performed via Soxhlet
with acetone under reflux at 56°C for 5 h. Polymer pre-
cipitation was carried out by cooling the solution (Jiang
et al. 2006). The purity of the extracted material was
determined by GC.