Gas chromatographic analysis of intact steryl esters in wild type Saccharomyces cerevisiae and in an ester accumulating mutant.

The steryl ester faction from wild type and mutant strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was analyzed without saponification by a non-polar capillary gas chromatographic column. When expressed as microgram ester/mg dry wt, the total ester fraction remained constant or declined slightly from log to stationary phase in the wild type. In the mutant the decrease was more dramatic. No individual ergosteryl ester species was dominant throughout the culture cycle in the wild type. A compound tentatively identified as zymosteryl palmitate was the most prevalent ester in wild type log phase cells, ergosta-5,7-dienyl palmitate and ergosta-5,7-dienyl palmitoleate were the major esters in stationary cells. In the mutant strain, ergosteryl esters of palmitate, palmitoleate, oleate, and stearate were the major ester components throughout the culture cycle. Like the wild type, however, the mutant showed an increase in the proportion of ergosta-5,7-dienyl esters in the stationary phase of the culture cycle. The data did not indicate a sterol/fatty acid specificity during the culture cycle.