The production of oil-based products currently relies on fossil resources or plants with a high triacylglycerol (TAG) content. In recent years, interest in alternative oil sources has increased, with yeasts being seen as having great potential. Of these, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was not the first choice for the production of oils due to its relatively low storage lipid content. In an effort to use also this species as a source for single-cell oils for industrial applications, research efforts have focused on increasing TAG accumulation in S. cerevisiae. In our study, we investigated the correlation between the origin, selected phenotypic characteristics and the ability to accumulate storage lipids of S. cerevisiae strains isolated from different substrates. The selected 70 strains were identified by ITS region sequencing. The storage lipid content was determined using Nile red dye and spectrometry. Based on these results, statistically significant associations between lipid accumulation of strains and the environments (oil, vineyard or forest) or substrates from which the strains had been isolated were determined. Correlations of lipid content with clade or genotype, variations in genes related to lipid metabolism, and phenotypic traits related to strain adaptation to the environment were also examined. When analysing the relationship between the storage lipid content and the genotype/phenotype of the strains, we had genomic data for 38 strains and phenotypic data for 34 strains. For the strains with relatively high storage lipid content, e.g. strain ZIM 2610, we could not find any statistically reliable correlations with the above-mentioned strain characteristics. We conclude that for more reliable results it would be necessary to expand the set of strains and form more equivalent groups.
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