The genus Bacillus was identified as one of the first
Gram-positive bacteria capable of producing PHB (Lemo-
igne 1926). This genus has been widely used for a long
time in industry and academia, due to the stability of its
replication and maintenance of plasmids (Biedendieck
et al. 2007). Up to now, many species of PHA-producing
bacilli have been isolated from various environments
(Singh et al. 2009). Among them, great polymer produc-
ers have been reported (Singh et al. 2009; Tian et al.
2009), such as Bacillus cereus, which can accumulate 48%
PHB of Cell dry mass (CDM) in a starch containing
medium (Halami 2008), or Bacillus sp. IPCB-403, which
is able to accumulate PHB in 70% of the CDM in opti-
mum culture conditions (Dave et al. 1996). However,
there is a drawback to working with Bacillus species for
large-scale production of biopolymer: sporulation is the
reason for low PHB productivity. It is obvious consider-
ing the fact that spore formation and PHA accumulation
are provoked by similar nutritional stress conditions
(Chen 2010). Nevertheless, there are studies on a large-
scale PHB production as reported by Valappil et al.
(2007) with B. cereus where the acidic pH used in the
medium avoids the spore formation. Hence, it is promis-
ing to explore strategies that prevent sporulation by
Bacillus species to increase the production of PHAs and
its efficiency yield from the applied carbon source.