Sterols and fatty acids of different Aspergillus species

Abstract

Sterol and fatty acid composition were combined for comparison of five industrially important Aspergillus species. Quantitative amounts of individual fatty acids, especially unsaturated ones, and the composition of sterols showed the differences among fungi examined. Besides ergosterol, six other sterols were present in detectable amounts in fungal mycelia. The most outstanding were the differences in the amounts of linolenic acid, ergosterol, and lanosterol, as well as in a sterol with M+376 identified as ergosterol peroxide.

Characterization of Aspergillus species based on fatty acid profiles

“…Eight types were represented the most, with palmitic acid, estearic acid, oleic acid, and linoleic acid as the most abundant, whereas palmitoleic acid margaric acid, linoleic acid and araquidic acid were detected in smaller ratios among the six evaluated species. These results were not in agreement with Nemec et al (1997), who investigated the FA profiles of A. flavus and A. fumigatus. They reported that palmitic acid, palmitolelic acid, margaric acid, estearic acid, oleic acid, linoleic acid and linolenic acid were prevalent and araquidic acid was not found.…”

“…The number of FA obtained in this work was higher than the ones obtained for different fungal species reported by Blomquist et al (1992), Stahl and Klug (1996) and Nemec et al (1997). The capillary column length (100 m) probably favored the fungal biomass FA detection in comparison to the 20 mL capillary columns used in other studies (Blomquist et al 1992, Müller et al 1994, Nemec et al 1997, Stahl & Klug 1996, Silva et al 1998.…”

“…The medium used during the experiments was totally free of FA residues and allowed for an excellent biomass production in less contaminating agents (Blomquist et al 1992). The use of type culture as a microbiological reference strain for the morphological and FA studies employed in our work was also reported in other studies (Blomquist et al 1992, Nemec et al 1997, Silva et al 1998) and was not presented by Stahl and Klug (1996) or Müller et al (1994).…”

“…The number of FAs profiles obtained by the extraction process was higher than the ones found for Aspergillus species by Blomquist et al (1992), Stahl and Klug (1996) and Nemec et al (1997). The analyzed fungi contained FA of carbon chain lengths ranging from 12-20.…”

“…The capillary column length (100 m) probably favored the fungal biomass FA detection in comparison to the 20 mL capillary columns used in other studies (Blomquist et al 1992, Müller et al 1994, Nemec et al 1997, Stahl & Klug 1996, Silva et al 1998.…”