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Title: CONVERSION OF UNSATURATED FATTY ACIDS BY BACTERIA ISOLATED FROM COMPOST

Author
item KANESHIRO, TSUNEO - RETIRED, USDA/ARS
item Kuo, Tsung Min
item Nakamura, Lawrence

Submitted to: Current Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/30/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Surplus vegetable oils represent attractive renewable resources for the production of useful chemicals. We are investigating the potential of microbial conversion of vegetable oils and their component fatty acids to produce value-added industrial products. In this study, we found that certain types of microorganisms in a compost mixture can easily be enriched and selected in the laboratory. The types of microbes with unique ability to add useful chemical groups to fatty acids could be isolated depending on the type of fatty acid being used in the selection medium. The findings provide scientists and industry a simple and easy model system to discover and develop new bioreactive systems in the production of valuable fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Technical Abstract: A compost mixture amended with soybean oil was enriched in microorganisms that transformed unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs). When oleic acid or 10-ketostearic acid was the selective fatty acid, Sphingobacterium thalpophilum (NRRL B- 23206, B-23209, B-23210, B-23211, B-23212), Acinetobacter spp. (B-23207, B-23213), and Enterobacter cloacae ( B-23264, 23265, B-23266) represented isolates that produced either hydroxystearic acid, ketostearic acid, or incomplete decarboxylations. When ricinoleic (12-hydroxy-9- octadecenoic) acid was the selective UFA, Enterobacter cloacae (NRRL B-23257, B-23267) and Escherichia sp. (B- 23259) produced 12-C and 14-C homologous compounds, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ( B-23256, B-23260) converted ricinoleate to a trihydroxyoctadecenoate product. Also, various Enterobacter, Pseudomonas, and Serratia spp. appeared to decarboxylate linoleate substrate incompletely. These saprophytic, compost bacteria were aerobic or facultative anaerobic Gram-negative and decomposed UFAs through decarboxylation, hydroxylation, and hydroperoxidation mechanisms.