Effects of sodium chloride concentration on phospholipid fatty acid composition of yeasts differing in osmotolerance

Abstract

The effect of growth medium NaCl concentration on the fatty acid composition of phospholipids of 3 strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and 6 osmotolerant yeast strains was examined. The S. cerevisiae strains were characterized by a high content of palmitoleic (C16:1) acid and by having no polyunsaturated C18 acids, whereas the osmotolerant strains had a low content of C16:1 and a high proportion of polyenoic C18 acids. An increase of the NaCl concentration from 0% to 8% resulted in a decrease of the cellular phospholipid content on a dry-weight basis, for all strains but one of the osmotolerant strains. For the S. cerevisiae strains increased salinity produced a slight decrease of the proportion of C16 fatty acids with a concomitant increase of C18 acids, whereas the osmotolerant strains showed an increase of the relative content of oleic acid (C18:1) at the expense of the proportion of polyenoic C18 acids.