Phasins are proteins that are proposed to play important roles in polyhydroxyalkanoate synthesis and granule formation. Here the phasin PhaP of Ralstonia eutropha has been analyzed with regard to its role in the synthesis of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB). Purified recombinant PhaP, antibodies against PhaP, and an R. eutropha phaP deletion strain have been generated for this analysis. Studies with the phaP deletion strain show that PhaP must accumulate to high levels in order to play its normal role in PHB synthesis and that the accumulation of PhaP to low levels is functionally equivalent to the absence of PhaP. PhaP positively affects PHB synthesis under growth conditions which promote production of PHB to low, intermediate, or high levels. The levels of PhaP generally parallel levels of PHB in cells. The results are consistent with models whereby PhaP promotes PHB synthesis by regulating the surface/volume ratio of PHB granules or by interacting with polyhydroxyalkanoate synthase and indicate that PhaP plays an important role in PHB synthesis from the early stages in PHB production and across a range of growth conditions.Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are polyoxoesters that are synthesized intracellularly in diverse bacteria under conditions of limitation for a nutrient other than carbon (5). The polymers are water insoluble and accumulate as intracellular granules (5). Phasins are low-molecular-weight proteins that are proposed to promote PHA synthesis in cells (9,10,15,18). Three different mechanisms for the function of phasins have been proposed. First, phasins may enhance PHA production by binding to granules and increasing the surface/volume ratio of the granules (18). Second, phasins may activate the rate of PHA synthesis by interacting directly with PHA synthase (18). Third, phasins may promote PHA synthesis indirectly by preventing growth defects associated with the binding of other cellular proteins to PHA granules (6, 18). Phasins have also been proposed to function as storage proteins (7), a role that could also conceivably affect PHA synthesis. Studies on the function of phasins in recombinant host strains (6, 9) and in vitro (3) have yielded anomalous results which hint that the timing and levels of expression of phasins may be crucial for their function. In order to understand the function of phasins, we have generated new tools and carried out a systematic study to examine the kinetics and amounts of the Ralstonia eutropha phasin PhaP in R. eutropha under a variety of growth conditions. R. eutropha is well suited for studies on phasins, given that the strain produces a PHA, poly-[(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate] (PHB), under many standard cultivation conditions (5, 17) and is amenable to genetic manipulation (8,12,14). The first genetic analysis of the role of PhaP in PHB synthesis in R. eutropha was conducted by Wieczorek et al. (18). They reported the isolation of five phaP::Tn5 mutants that were claimed to be defective in the production of PhaP and to produce half as much PHB as the wild-type (wt) strain (18...