After training for 1,2-propanediol, a yeast, Lipomyces starkeyi, grew well in the media containing the diol, showing a diauxie-like pattern. The yeast phospholipid was converted into monoacetyl-diglyceride by acetolysis. The presence of monoacetyl-mono fatty acyl esters of the diol in this fraction was found by GC-MS. The data suggested that the diol was present as 2-palmitoyl-ester and 2-oleoyl-ester in the form of phospholipid analogue, in which phosphorus bound in I-position of the diol. Molecular species of the phospholipid was also deduced from the GC-MS data. Diol diester was not found in the triglyceride fraction of the yeast.Following the first discovery of a fatty acid ester of 2,3-butanediol, named as coixenolide, by Ukita et al.,11 several kinds of short chain dials, ethyleneglycol, propanediol, butanediol and so on, were detected in lipid hydrolyzates from many biological sources by many investigators. 21 However, only one diol phospholipid had been reported until the recent studies by Bergelson et aU' Little is known about the biogenesis of diol lipids. It has not been known whether a free diol in the medium would be incorporated into the lipid as an alcohol constituent or not.The present investigation was undertaken to find out if the diol supplemented in the cultivation medium would be incorporated into the lipid of the yeast, L. starkeyi. During the course of this experiment, a direct method to distinguish the free diol from the diol lipids became necessary. To resolve this problem, acetolysis method and combined gas chromatot A part of this work was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Agricultural Chemical Society of Japan, held in Tokyo, April, 1973, and also at 9th International Congress of Biochemistry, held in Stockholm, Sweden, July, 1973. Abbreviations used: MADG, monoacetyl-diglyceride; CoM, chloroform-methanol; GC-MS, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry; TLC, thin-layer chromatography; TMS, trimethyl silylether; GLC, gas-liquid chromatography; DEGS, diethyleneglycol succinate polyester. graphy-mass spectrometry were employed. The results showed that diollipids were detected in the phospholipid fraction obtained from the cells harvested at the stages adaptating and consuming 1,2-propanediol.
MATERIAL" AND METHODS
Microorganism and culture conditions.The microorganism used in this study was Lipomyces starkeyi IFO 0678. In order to adapt L. starkeyi to the new carbon source, it was preliminarily cultured in the following three different media. The first strain was grown in a glucose medium, then transferred to the medium containing 1~~of 1,2-propanediol and 4 % of glucose, and then transferred to 2.5 % each of 1,2-propanediol and glucose. The strain cultivated in the last medium was used in the main culture.The culture medium used in this experiment was as Cultivation was carried out at 30°C under shaking. During the cultivation, the pH of the medium was controlled at approximately 4 to 6 by means of adding 1 N-NaOH. Aliquots of yeast cells were harvested at 100 hr, 121 hr, 168 hr...