Lipid Production From Waste Materials in Seawater-Based Medium by the Yeast Yarrowia lipolytica.

Adam Dobrowolski,Katarzyna Drzymała,Paweł Mituła,Dorota A Rzechonek,Aleksandra M Mirończuk

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2019.00547

Abstract

The global limitation of fossil fuels impels scientists to search for new energy sources. A good alternative is biodiesel produced from crop plants. However, its production requires huge quantities of farmland, fertilizers and fresh water, which is in conflict with the human demand for water for consumption and land for food production. Thus, production of single cell oil (SCO) by oleaginous microorganisms remains the best solution for the coming years. Whereas most microorganisms require fresh water for proper cell metabolism, in this study we demonstrate that the unconventional yeast Yarrowia lipolytica is able to produce huge quantities of fatty acid in seawater-based medium. Here we shown that Y. lipolytica is able to produce fatty acids in medium based on seawater and crude glycerol as the main carbon source, which allows for low-cost production of SCO, is beneficial for industrial application and is ecologically friendly.

Highlights

The yeast Yarrowia lipolytica is a well-studied microorganism used as a model for lipid synthesis in eukaryotic cells (Lazar et al, 2018)
Under high osmotic stress Y. lipolytica produces erythritol, to protect the cells against harmful environmental conditions (Mironczuk et al, 2017; Rzechonek et al, 2017b). It was unknown if the growth of Y. lipolytica in seawater-based medium will be comparable with the growth in fresh water-based medium, especially strains industrially interested but isolated from other marine and hypersaline environments
The growth of the strain A101 in seawaterbased medium remained the same during 72 h (Figure 1B). This confirmed that Y. lipolytica could efficiently grow in rich medium based on seawater, even when glycerol was used as the main carbon source

Summary

Introduction

The yeast Yarrowia lipolytica is a well-studied microorganism used as a model for lipid synthesis in eukaryotic cells (Lazar et al, 2018). Y. lipolytica naturally occurs in food such as cheese and meat, and has been found in soil and marine environments (Groenewald et al, 2014) This yeast is known for its ability to produce organic acids (Rymowicz et al, 2010; Otto et al, 2012; Kamzolova et al, 2018), polyols (Rakicka et al, 2016; Janek et al, 2017; Rzechonek et al, 2017a) and biomass (Juszczyk et al, 2013) from untypical carbon sources such as crude glycerol, n-alkanes or agro-industrial residues (Papanikolaou et al, 2002, 2003; Dobrowolski et al, 2016). There is a competition between food and biodiesel production, since most crop plants are intended for the

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