MICROBIAL TRANSFORMATION OF LIPIDS: SELECTIVE HYDRATION OF OLEIC ACID

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, El-Mansoura University, El-Mansoura, El-Mansoura, Egypt

2 Center for Biocatalysis, College of Pharmacy, Iowa University, Iowa City, IA 52242 USA

Abstract

The cultures Nocardia sp. NRRL 5646, Nocardia aurantia ATCC 12674, and Mycobacterium fortium AM 53378 were identified as being capable of metabolizing oleic acid. These organisms selectively hydrated the cis-double bond of oleic acid in the presence of other fatty acids like oleic : linoleic (1 :1, w/w), oleic : stearic (9:1, w/w), oleic : linoleic : stearic (2:2:1,w/w), and oleic:linoleic: palmitic (2:2:1, w/w). Based on gas chromatography of the fatty acid methyl esters, it was found that stearic, palmitic, and linoleic acids were unreactive with the hydratase enzyme of the three microbes and in all cases 80-88% of oleic acid was consumed. Thus, the hydratase enzyme was able to selectively and quantitatively hydrate oleic acid and discriminate among monoenoic, dienoic and saturated fatty acids. This work provides a mean of oxidatively removing oleic acid from among a mixture of other mono and polyunsaturated vegetable oil fatty acids. We believe that the selected organisms have the abilities to transform oleic acid and to selectively utilize that compound from similar mixtures as well.