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Oily yeasts as oleaginous cell factories

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Abstract

Oily yeasts have been described to be able to accumulate lipids up to 20% of their cellular dry weight. These yeasts represent a minor proportion of the total yeast population, and only 5% of them have been reported as able to accumulate more than 25% of lipids. The oily yeast genera include Yarrowia, Candida, Rhodotorula, Rhodosporidium, Cryptococcus, Trichosporon, and Lipomyces. More specifically, examples of oleaginous yeasts include the species: Lipomyces starkeyi, Rhodosporidium toruloides, Rhodotorula glutinis, and Yarrowia lipolytica. Yeast do exhibit advantages for lipid production over other microbial sources, namely, their duplication times are usually lower than 1 h, are much less affected than plants by season or climate conditions, and their cultures are more easily scaled up than those of microalgae. Additionally, some oily yeasts have been reported to accumulate oil up to 80% of their dry weight and can indeed generate different lipids from different carbon sources or from lipids present in the culture media. Thus, they can vary their lipid composition by replacing the fatty acids present in their triglycerides. Due to the diversity of microorganisms and growth conditions, oily yeasts can be useful for the production of triglycerides, surfactants, or polyunsaturated fatty acids.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Xunta de Galicia and the University of Santiago de Compostela. The authors wish to express their gratitude to the POP of Biotechnological Engineering of the USC for the support shown throughout this project.

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  1. Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Santiago de Compostela, Campus Sur, 15782, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Jose Manuel Ageitos, Juan Andres Vallejo, Patricia Veiga-Crespo & Tomas G. Villa

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  1. Jose Manuel Ageitos
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  2. Juan Andres Vallejo
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  3. Patricia Veiga-Crespo
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  4. Tomas G. Villa
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Correspondence to Tomas G. Villa.

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Jose Manuel Ageitos and Juan Andres Vallejo are equal contributors.

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Ageitos, J.M., Vallejo, J.A., Veiga-Crespo, P. et al. Oily yeasts as oleaginous cell factories. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 90, 1219–1227 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3200-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3200-z

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