Influence of glucose and saturated free-fatty acid mixtures on citric acid and lipid production by Yarrowia lipolytica

In the present report, the effect of glucose and stearin (substrate composed by saturated free-fatty acids) on the production of biomass, reserve lipid, and citric acid by Yarrowia lipolytica ACA-DC 50109 was investigated in nitrogen-limited cultures. Numerical models that were used in order to quantify the kinetic behavior of the above Yarrowia lipolytica strain showed successful simulation, while the optimized parameter values were similar to those experimentally measured and the predictive ability of the models was satisfactory. In nitrogen-limited cultures in which glucose was used as the sole substrate, satisfactory growth and no glucose inhibition occurred, although in some cases the initial concentration of glucose was significantly high (150 g/l). Citric acid production was observed in all trials, which was in some cases notable (final concentration 42.9 g/l, yield 0.56 g per g of sugar consumed). The concentration of unsaturated cellular fatty acids was slightly lower when the quantity of sugar in the medium was elevated. In the cases in which stearin and glucose were used as co-substrates, in spite of the fact that the quantity of cellular lipid inside the yeast cells varied remarkably (from 0.3 to 2.0 g/l - 4 to 20% wt/wt), de novo fatty acid biosynthesis was observed. This activity increased when the yeast cells assimilated higher sugar quantities. The citric acid produced was mainly derived from the catabolism of sugar. Nevertheless, citric acid yield on sugar consumed and citrate specific production rate, as evaluated by the numerical model, presented substantially higher values in the fermentation in which no fat was used as glucose co-substrate compared with the cultures with stearin used as co-substrate.