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Lipid accumulation by Rhodococcus rhodochrous grown on glucose

  • Bioenergy/Biofuels/Biochemicals
  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

Biodiesel is an alternative fuel made from costly vegetable oil feedstocks. Some microorganisms can accumulate lipids when nutrients are limited and carbon is in excess. Rhodococcus rhodochrous is a gram-positive bacterium most often used in bioremediation or acrylamide production. The purpose of this study was to investigate and characterize the lipid accumulation capabilities of R. rhodochrous. Shake flasks and a large-scale fermentation were used to cultivate R. rhodochrous in varying concentrations of glucose. R. rhodochrous achieved almost 50 % of dry cell mass as lipid when grown in 20 g/L of glucose. Wax esters and triglycerides were identified in R. rhodochrous lipid extract. The transesterified extractables of R. rhodochrous consisted of mostly palmitic (35 %) and oleic (42 %) acid methyl esters. This study shows R. rhodochrous to be an oleaginous bacterium with potential for application in alternative fuels.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Amanda Lawrence, Magan Green, Kamal Lamichhane Upadhyaya and Jacqueline Blake for their technical assistance. This research was funded by the United States Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (Grant No.: DE-FG36-06GO86025).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that all experiments documented in this manuscript comply with the current laws of the USA. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA

    Sara A. Shields-Menard & Janet R. Donaldson

  2. Dave C. Swalm School of Chemical Engineering, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA

    Marta Amirsadeghi, Badamkhand Sukhbaatar & W. Todd French

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, USA

    Emmanuel Revellame & Rafael Hernandez

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  1. Sara A. Shields-Menard
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  2. Marta Amirsadeghi
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Correspondence to W. Todd French.

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Shields-Menard, S.A., Amirsadeghi, M., Sukhbaatar, B. et al. Lipid accumulation by Rhodococcus rhodochrous grown on glucose. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 42, 693–699 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-014-1564-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-014-1564-7

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