Provided herein are methods of culturing a microorganism. The methods include providing a container comprising one or more microorganisms in a medium, which has a first carbon to nitrogen ratio; culturing the microorganisms until the culture reaches a threshold indicator; harvesting a portion of the culture while maintaining the majority of the culture in the container; and adding fresh medium comprising a second carbon to nitrogen ratio to the container with the majority of the culture comprising the microorganisms.

The current invention provides use of a CLA-producing bacterium for the in vivo conversion in the gut of polyunsaturated fatty acids to CLA. The CLA-producing bacterium is selected from one or more of the group consisting of propionibacteria, lactobacilli, lactococci and streptococci, and bifidobacteria.

A method to increase the biomass production and fatty acids in the alga Chlorella vulgaris Beyerinck and obtain a lipid rich biomass type C:16 (palmitic), C18:1n-9 (oleic), C18:2n-6t (linoleidic) and C18:3n-3 (alpha-linolenic), which uses low irradiance from a dichromatic light source.

Provided herein are methods of culturing a microorganism. The methods include providing a container comprising one or more microorganisms in a medium, which has a first carbon to nitrogen ratio; culturing the microorganisms until the culture reaches a threshold indicator; harvesting a portion of the culture while maintaining the majority of the culture in the container; and adding fresh medium comprising a second carbon to nitrogen ratio to the container with the majority of the culture comprising the microorganisms.

The present invention relates to a process for the production of polyunsaturated fatty acids in an organism by introducing, into the organism, nucleic acids which encode polypeptides with Δ5-elongase activity. Advantageously, these nucleic acids can be expressed in the organism together with further nucleic acids which encode polypeptides of the biosynthesis of the fatty acid or lipid metabolism. Especially advantageous are nucleic acids which encode Δ6-desaturases, Δ5-desaturases, Δ4-desaturases and/or Δ6-elongases. These desaturases and elongases are advantageously derived from Thalassiosira, Euglena or Ostreococcus. The invention furthermore relates to a process for the production of oils and/or triacylglycerides with an elevated content of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, and oils and/or triacylglycerides thus obtained. The invention also relates to the nucleic acids, and constructs, vectors and transgenic organisms comprising the same, as well as oils, lipids and/or fatty acids produced by the process according to the invention and to their use.

Disclosed is linoleic acid isomerases and their application in production of conjugated linoleic acid, which belongs to the technical fields of protein engineering and microbial engineering. The linoleic acid isomerase derived from Bifidobacterium is used to produce the conjugated linoleic acid. The recombinant E. coli containing the linoleic acid isomerase of the invention is added into a reaction system containing linoleic acid and react for 3 h to produce conjugated linoleic acids. The conversion rate of the conjugated linoleic acid of the invented method ranges from 12.1% to 42.1%, and the percentage of cis9, trans11-CLA in the conjugated linoleic acid can reach 84.3% to 89.1%. The invention provides a method for using microorganisms to produce conjugated linoleic acids with high safety and yield where cis9, trans11-CLA isomer is the major form in the conjugated linoleic acid products.

A method for producing a hydroxy fatty acid condensate or a mixture of hydroxy fatty acid condensates is provided. The method involves the steps of providing one or more fatty acids having at least one C═C double bond functionality, biotechnologically adding H.sub.2O to at least one C═C double bond functionality of the one or more fatty acids and thus obtaining one or more hydroxy fatty acids, and reacting the one or more hydroxy fatty acids with one or more at least divalent linker groups, thus obtaining a hydroxy fatty acid condensate or a mixture of hydroxy fatty acid condensates. Also provided are a hydroxy fatty acid condensate or a mixture of hydroxy fatty acid condensates obtained by the method, as well as polyurethane, obtained by reacting such a hydroxy fatty acid condensate or mixture of hydroxy fatty acid condensates.

The present disclosure relates to a construction method of a Mucor circinelloides cell factory for producing dihomo-γ-linolenic acid and a fermentation technology, belonging to the field of genetic engineering. In the present disclosure, γ-linolenic acid elongase gene glelo is obtained from Mortierella alpine by cloning, the gene is ligated to an integrative plasmid pMAT1552, and transformed into a Mucor circinelloides defective strain Mu402, and the gene glelo is integrated into Mucor circinelloides genome through homologous recombination, to obtain the recombinant strain Mc-glelo, and finally, the expression of the gene glelo in Mucor circinelloides is realized. The lipid content in the recombinant strain Mc-glelo is not obviously different from that in the control strain Mc1552, however, the lipid composition changes greatly, and dihomo-γ-linolenic acid appears in the lipids of the recombinant strain Mc-glelo, and the content thereof reaches 5.7% of the total fatty acids. Under optimized fermentation conditions and in the presence of precursor fatty acid, the DGLA content reaches 7.6%. The new recombinant strain was deposited in China General Microbiological Culture Collection Center on Jun. 20, 2018, with the address of No. 3, Courtyard 1, Beichen West Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing. The accession number given to the biological material by the collection center is CGMCC No. 15887, and the suggested taxonomic denomination is Mucor circinelloides-GLELO.

A method of producing lipids, containing the steps of: culturing a transformant into which a gene encoding at least one of the proteins selected from the group consisting of the following proteins (A) to (C) is introduced; and producing fatty acids or lipids containing the same as components:
(A) A protein consisting of the amino acid sequence of the 23.sup.rd to 146.sup.th amino acids set forth in SEQ ID NO: 1;
(B) A protein consisting of an amino acid sequence having 70% or more identity with the amino acid sequence of the protein (A), and having acyl carrier protein activity; and
(C) A protein containing the amino acid sequence of the protein (A) or (B), and having acyl carrier protein activity.

The current invention provides use of a CLA-producing bacterium for the in vivo conversion in the gut of polyunsaturated fatty acids to CLA. The CLA-producing bacterium is selected from one or more of the group consisting of propionibacteria, lactobacilli, lactococci and streptococci, and bifidobacteria.