Table 2.

Comparison of PHA nanoparticles in vitro and in vivo production process, their applications and costs.

	In vivo	In vitro	Ref.
Production and processing	Production by bacteria	Synthetic production	2, 20
	Use of renewable sources for production	Harsh chemical needed for polymer isolation and particle production	30, 53
	Simultaneous production and functionalization	Functionalization posterior to nanobead production	8, 20, 30
	Nanobead assembly and disassembly cannot be tightly controlled	Tight control over bead assembly and disassembly	10, 54
	Competition of recombinant and wild type GAPs	Functionalization with target protein only, no other GAPs	8, 30, 54
	Particle size can be controlled by biotechnological production process	Tight control over particle size	32, 54
	Immobilized protein concentration variation might represent challenge	Tight control over immobilized protein concentration	7, 30
	In the case of Gram- strains endotoxins cannot be removed, while if produced in Gram+ endotoxins absent	Endotoxin removal possible and needed	2, 25, 55
Applications	Suitable for environmental applications; Insecticide delivery	Suitable for biomedical applications; Drug delivery	14, 16, 30, 45
	Protein purification	Diagnostics	2, 20
	Endotoxin removal	Vaccines	2, 19, 20, 25, 52
Production cost	Total production cost includes in vivo particle production cost and particle purification, lower production cost compared to in vitro produced particles, since additional functionalization is not needed	Higher production costs compared to in vivo produced particles, total price accounts for polymer synthesis, isolation, endotoxin removal, in vitro particle synthesis and functionalization	30, 54, 56