Cell lipids of the Candida lipolytica yeast grown on methanol.

Candida lipolytica yeast, grown on 1% methanol as the only carbon and energy source, synthesized 4.9% of dry cell mass as lipids, 52.3% of which were polar lipids. Polar lipids consisted mainly of phospholipids and sphingolipids as their minor components. The total long-chain bases content has been found to account only for 0.7% of the polar lipids. The long-chain bases composition determined by thin-layer and gas chromatography shows a preponderance of trihydroxy bases and a small amount of dihydroxy bases. The striking finding was the high content of 19-phytosphingosine (90.8% of total long-chain bases). Fatty acid (FA) composition of polar lipids was characterized by the relatively high concentration of unsaturated fatty acids (66.4% of total FA) and by the predominance of fatty acids with 16 carbon atoms (85.0% of total FA).