Growth yield, maintenance requirements, and lipid formation in the oleaginous yeast Apiotrichum curvatum.

For guiding and improving the efficiency of the production of lipid, complete insight into the flow of carbon and energy during growth and product formation is necessary. Therefore, data have been collected to determine various important growth parameters for the oleaginous yeast Apiotrichum curvatum. Chemostat experiments at specific growth rates, ranging from 0.05 to 0.15 h(-1) and recycling experiments with 100% biomass retention, with growth rates decreasing from 0.10 to 0.004 h(-1), demonstrated that maintenance requirements of A. curvatum are very low, compared to maintenance requirements described for other yeasts as Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida parapsilosis.It also appeared that growth and lipid production are proportional to substrate consumption when specific growth rates are higher than approximately 0.02 h(-1), but that lipid production stops at growth rates below this value. The practical consequences of these data are that fed batch cultures, which are often applied in fermentation industry, can only be useful with lipid producing yeasts when the growth rate in the process is carefully monitored to ensure specific growth rates higher than 0.02 h(-1). Dilution of the culture, partial recycling and/or a continuously increasing nutrient feed are solutions for the expected problems at low growth rates.

Mathematical modelling of lipid production by oleaginous yeasts in continuous cultures.

A mathematical model was constructed to describe the influence of the carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N-ratio) of the growth medium on lipid production by oleaginous yeasts. To test this model and to determine some relevant model parameters, the oleaginous yeast Apiotrichum curvatum ATCC 20509 was grown in continuous cultures at various C/N-ratios and dilution rates. It appeared that when nitrogen is limiting for the formation of biomass, the remaining glucose can be converted to storage carbohydrate and storage lipid. No clear dependence of carbohydrate yield on the C/N-ratio could be demonstrated, but lipid yield increased gradually with increasing C/N-ratios. The maximal dilution rate for lipid producing yeast cells appeared to be optimal at relatively low C/N-ratios. It can be concluded that the experimental results fitted well with the mathematical model. By using this model, lipid yield and lipid production rate can be calculated at any C/N-ratio of the growth medium and optimum operation conditions can be predicted for the production of microbial lipids.

Heterogeneity in the ribosomal RNA genes of the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica; cloning and analysis of two size classes of repeats.

Southern blotting of DNA from the ascomycetous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica revealed two major size classes of DNA units coding for rRNAs, which differ in length by about 1000 bp. We have cloned an rDNA unit of each size class. R-looping experiments revealed that the rRNA genes of both units are uninterrupted; subsequent heteroduplex analysis showed that the size difference both units is located within the nontranscribed spacer. Sequence analysis revealed that a major part of these spacers consists of a complex pattern of repetitions in periodicities of up to about 150 bp and that the difference between both rDNA units are located mainly in this repetitive region. Apart from different lengths of the repetitive regions, both rDNA units also reveal extended microheterogeneity within their homologous parts. Furthermore, no gene for 5S rRNA was observed in the spacer region. Therefore, the organization of the spacer of Yarrowia rDNA is clearly different from that of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.