Sunday, August 11, 2013
Pavilion (Sheraton San Diego)
Oils and fats are the most important renewable feedstock of the chemical industry and their fatty acids derivatives present a wide range of applications such as building blocks for polymers, surfactants, lubricants, plastics, fuels or pharmaceuticals. Single Cell Oils, oils derived from microbial sources, are increasing importance due to they are not competitive with foods, they are independent of season and climate, they have short process cycle and are easily scaled up. Ashbya gossypii is a filamentous industrial friendly fungus that is able to accumulate up to 70% of its cell dry weight as oils. The fatty acid profile is characteristic of an organism under certain growth conditions and it represents the relative amount of each fatty acid it produces. There are two main enzymatic activities responsible for this profile: elongases and desaturase. We previously identified the elongase and desaturase system in Ashbya gossypii, which is formed by two elongases (Elo1 and Elo2) and two desaturases (D9 and D12 desaturases). Then, we engineered Ashbya by overexpression and deletion of these genes, therefore modifying its fatty acid profile. Hence, we obtained novel strains that can be used as both, 1) platform strains for future development of genetic engineering approaches aimed to produce a specific fatty acid derivative, and 2) as direct source of uncommon fatty acids useful for industrial applications.