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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Peoria, Illinois » National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research » Renewable Product Technology Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #274652

Title: Production of a novel 9,12-dihydroxy-10(E)-eicosenoic acid from eicosenoic acid by Pseudomonas aeruginosa PR3

Author
item BACK, KA-YEON - Kyungpook National University
item SOHN, HYE-RAN - Kyungpook National University
item Hou, Ching
item KIM, HAK-RYUL - Kyungpook National University

Submitted to: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/1/2012
Publication Date: 6/1/2012
Citation: Back, K., Sohn, H., Hou, C.T., Kim, H. 2012. Production of a novel 9,12-dihydroxy-10(E)-eicosenoic acid from eicosenoic acid by Pseudomonas aeruginosa PR3. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 59:9652-9657.

Interpretive Summary: Previously, we discovered a new microbial culture that produced novel hydroxy fatty acids that are useful as starting materials for the synthesis of specialty chemicals, including special military nylon, plastisizers, coating materials, and possibly as physiologically active agents. Now we have found that this strain can also convert longer chain fatty acid, including eicosenoic acid. Eicosenic acid is non-edible fatty acid produced in such as soapnut oil and is considered as a new source for biodiesel. Our findings facilitate the research on the production of novel hydroxyl fatty acids bioprocess and benefit the U.S. farmers.

Technical Abstract: Microbial conversions of unsaturated fatty acids often generate polyhydroxy fatty acids rendering them to have new properties such as higher viscosity and reactivity. A bacterial strain Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PR3) has been intensively studied to produce mono-, di-, and tri-hydroxy fatty acids from different 9-cis-monoenoic fatty acids such as oleic acid, ricinoleic acid and palmitoleic acid. However, from the results and the postulated similar metabolic pathways involved in these transformations, it was highly assumed that the enzyme system involved in transformation of the monoenoic fatty acid by strain PR3 could utilize fatty acid with different chain length and location of the double bond. In this study we tried to use, as a substrate for bioconversion by strain PR3, eicosenoic acid (C20:1, omega-9) containing a singular cis double bond at the different position from the carboxyl end as oleic acid and firstly confirmed that PR3 could produce a novel 9,12-dihydroxy-10(E)-eicosenoic acid (DED) with 6.2% yield from eicosenoic acid. The structure of DED was confirmed using GC/MS, FTIR and NMR analysis. DED production was maximized at 72h after the substrate was added to the 24-h-culture. Some other nutritional factors were also studied for optimal production of DED.