Myxomycetes (slime mold) as a new lipid source for biodiesel production

Abstract

A twenty four species of myxomycetes were collected from forest floor litter of Cuc Phuong and Cat Tien national parks. Growth rate and plasmodium formations of myxomycetes developed in moist chambers were observed, four species were selected for investigating lipid production due to having faster growth rate and larger plasmodium size. Physarum nutants was found to be the best candidate for lipid production. This myxomycete species could accumulate 90% of lipid in dry biomass, and produced 4.5 g/L culture within 2-4 days. These results showed that Ph. nutants had more advantages over algae and could be an excellent source of lipid for biodiesel production to replace algae. Studies on the optimization of medium components on lipid production of Ph. nutants revealed that glucose concentration had immense impact, lipid concentration increased along with accelerating glucose concentration, and the maximum value lipid was obtained at 10 g/L of glucose. High C/N ratios were found more suitable for cell growth and lipid production of Ph. nutants. Besides that, light was found have negative effect on both cell growth and lipid production. In brief, this is the first research attempting to investigate and optimize lipid production of a myxomycete. The obtained results proposes that Ph. nutants is a excellent lipid producer.