Abstract
Arachidonyl alcohol rarely occurs in natural oils. It can be used as a substrate for production of several ether lipids possessing beneficial functions. Although arachidonyl alcohol has been produced on a laboratory scale by the chemical reduction of arachidonic acid, it will be difficult to scale up this process for industrial application. The aim of this study was to develop a new bioprocess for converting arachidonic acid to arachidonyl alcohol. Screening was conducted using 11 wax ester- (esters of fatty acids and fatty alcohols) producing strains reported in our previous study, and a single-cell oil containing arachidonic acid. A new strain, Acinetobacter species N-476-2, most effectively converted arachidonic acid to arachidonyl alcohol, which accumulated inside the cells as a wax ester. GC–MS, FT–IR, and NMR analyses showed that this strain reduced the carboxyl group of 5-cis,8-cis,11-cis,14-cis-arachidonic acid to a hydroxyl group without altering the position or configuration of the double bonds; the product was identified as 5-cis,8-cis,11-cis,14-cis-arachidonyl alcohol. A time-course study of cultivation showed that the amount of arachidonyl alcohol produced by the strain after 4 days was 2.2 mg/mL culture. The bioprocess using Acinetobacter sp. N-476-2 can be applied to the large-scale production of arachidonyl alcohol.
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This work was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No. 20580093) and a research grant from the Institute for Fermentation, Osaka, Japan.
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Nagao, T., Watanabe, Y., Tanaka, S. et al. Microbial Conversion of Arachidonic Acid to Arachidonyl Alcohol by a New Acinetobacter Species. J Am Oil Chem Soc 89, 1663–1671 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11746-012-2057-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11746-012-2057-3