Editorial: Advances and trends in microbial production of biopolymers and their building blocks

Petroleum-based polymers have played an important role in human daily life, but they also cause serious environmental pollution due to their low biodegradability. In contrast, biopolymers have attracted unprecedented attentions with advantage of life cycle carbon emission reduction under the global achievement of “carbon peak” and “carbon neutrality”. However, some shortcomings of biopolymes remain and restrict their popular application, such as high cost, low productivity, and poor material properties.

This special issue consists of six original papers, one brief research report, two specialized review papers and one mini review article covering workhorse strains, cheap raw materials utilization, enzyme screening, monomer biosynthesis and bio-process optimization, which showcase current progress on biopolymers and aim to provide possible solutions to the existing problems.