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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, July 2003, p. 4167-4176, Vol. 69, No. 7
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.7.4167-4176.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Production of a Polyunsaturated Isoprenoid Wax Ester during Aerobic Metabolism of Squalene by Marinobacter squalenivorans sp. nov.

Jean-François Rontani,^1* Abdelkrim Mouzdahir,^1,2 Valerie Michotey,¹ Pierre Caumette,³ and Patricia Bonin¹

Laboratoire d'Océanographie et de Biogéochimie (UMR 6535), Centre d'Océanologie de Marseille—OSU, Campus de Luminy, 13288 Marseille,¹ Laboratoire d'Ecologie Moléculaire-Microbiologie, Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, 64013 Pau, France,³ Laboratoire de Chimie Organique et Bioorganique, Université Chouaïb Doukkali, El Jadida, Morocco²

Received 11 December 2002/ Accepted 28 April 2003

This paper describes the production of 5,9,13-trimethyltetradeca-4E,8E,12-trienyl-5,9,13-trimethyltetradeca-4E,8E,12-trienoate during the aerobic degradation of squalene by a Marinobacter strain, 2Asq64, isolated from the marine environment. A pathway involving initial cleavage of the C₁₀-C₁₁ or C₁₄-C₁₅ double bonds of the squalene molecule is proposed to explain the formation of this polyunsaturated isoprenoid wax ester. The isoprenoid wax ester content reached 1.1% of the degraded squalene at the mid-exponential growth phase and then decreased during the stationary phase. The wax ester content increased by approximately threefold in N-limited cultures, in which the ammonium concentration corresponds to conditions often found in marine sediments. This suggests that the bacterial formation of isoprenoid wax esters might be favored in such environments. The bacterial strain is then characterized as a member of a new species, for which we propose the name Marinobacter squalenivorans sp. nov.

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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Laboratoire d'Océanographie et de Biogéochimie (UMR 6535), Centre d'Océanologie de Marseille—OSU, Campus de Luminy—case 901, 13288 Marseille, France. Phone: 33 (0) 4 91 82 96 23. Fax: 33 (0)4 91 82 65 48. E-mail: rontani{at}com.univ-mrs.fr.

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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, July 2003, p. 4167-4176, Vol. 69, No. 7
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.7.4167-4176.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

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