Microbial Lipids: Novel Advances and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

During recent decades, microbial lipids (also referred to as single cell oils, microbial oils or bio-oils) have been under the spotlight since they have applications in several domains. Lipids derived from microorganisms have the potential to be used in oleochemical and biofuel industries and can also be a potential source for food supplements, due to the ability of some oleaginous microorganisms to synthesize polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as those belonging to the ω-3 and ω-6 series. Though they could be an excellent alternative to replace vegetable oils as a biofuel feedstock for biodiesel or bio-jet fuel industries—as well as for food and animal feed applications—their industrial production is still hampered by the high costs of substrates, the productivity of the obtained bio-oils and the oil extraction yields. Several efforts have been made to enhance the lipids’ yield and the efficiency of oleaginous machinery, including the optimization of culture conditions, the bioprocess strategies and the construction of engineered microbial strains. Furthermore, the exploitation of low-value raw materials as substrate for microbial lipids production has proven to be an effective cost-cutting strategy to decrease the overall process costs.

Aimed at improving the knowledge of lipids production by oleaginous microbial species (filamentous fungi, yeasts, microalgae and bacteria), this Special Issue aims to provide an up-to-date collection of significant papers, presenting the most relevant advances in this field. Researchers are invited to submit work focusing on cultivation conditions (medium composition, operational conditions, mode of operation, etc.), utilization of cheap waste materials as substrate, adaptive evolution strategies, random mutagenesis and genetically engineered strains for enhancing lipids production and for biosynthesis of specialty lipids with high added-value. Discussion on topics such as new methods for lipids quantification, cells disruption and oils extraction, modeling or kinetics of lipids profile and applications of microbial lipids are also encouraged.

Dr. Marlene Lopes
Dr. Isabel Belo
Guest Editors

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