Oleaginous Fungi: A Solution to Oil Crisis

Abstract

Oleaginous fungi are known for microbial oil as they can accumulate intracellular lipid up to 70% under stress condition. Like vegetable oils, microbial oils component is TAG, composed of C16 and C18 series long chain fatty acids, due to which microbial lipids can be subjected to transesterification process. High growth rate, short generation time and high lipid content of oleaginous microorganism, under specific conditions, open new prospects for scaling up the cultivation. Although microbial lipid content is high in such microorganism, but process optimization and isolation of organism that can grow on cheap sources of carbon, would add advantage to the production system. Oil from oleaginous fungi has given a new turn to the fuel generation and to the food industries, as their lipid is rich in TAG and the specific PUFA. With the increase in population, demand for food is also soaring, in such scenario food based fuel production will be highly expensive and unwise option, a promising alternative is to look at microbial oil technology as it doesn’t compete with the farmland for crop production. The present chapter focuses on the growth, mechanism and regulation of lipid accumulation in oleaginous filamentous fungi.