Figure 2: Genotypic dependency towards lipid induction phenotype.

Heat maps of nile red-stained lipid fluorescence for the (a) POlf low-lipid-accumulating strain, (b) POlf leucine⁺ uracil⁺ moderate lipid-accumulating strain, and (c) pex10 mfe1 leucine⁺ DGA1 high-lipid-accumulating strain demonstrate a decoupling of lipogenesis and nitrogen starvation as well as the implication of absolute carbon content as a lipogenesis effector. Fluorescence data is shown for each strain after cultivation and staining in twelve media formulations containing between 20 g l⁻¹ and 160 g l⁻¹ glucose and 0.055 g l⁻¹ and 1.365 g l⁻¹ ammonium. Lipogenesis is dependent on absolute environmental carbon content and low lipid accumulators (a) require less carbon for optimal lipogenic induction than moderate (b) or high (c) lipid accumulating strains. In highly lipogenic strains (c), high lipogenesis is uncoupled from nitrogen starvation. These studies were conducted with technical duplicates.