Molecular Characterization Of Rhodotorula Mucilaginosa Mutants

• Main Author: Kong, Jackson
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English; English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) 2018
• Subjects: Q Science (General)
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/35170/1/Molecular%20Characterization%20Of%20Rhodotorula%20Mucilaginosa%20Mutants%2824pgs%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/35170/4/Molecular%20Characterization%20Of%20Rhodotorula%20Mucilaginosa%20Mutants%28fulltext%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/35170/

Natural fossil fuel has been overexploited and is near its depletion. This problem results in the race to find an alternative for fossil fuel, one of which is biodiesel. Biodiesel can be produced by chemically mixing alcohol and lipids, that can be collected from either plant, animals or microorganism. Among these three, microorganisms have the major potential to produce lipids compared to plants and animals because they have shorter life cycles and are easy to obtain. Rhodotorula mucilaginosa is one of the potential large lipid producer among other microorganisms. In this study, genetic diversity of selected R. mucilaginosa mutants were investigated to improve the ability of R. mucilaginosa to produce more lipids. DNA of 23 isolates including parental and mutants of R. mucilaginosa were extracted and subjected to Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) DNA amplification with M-13 as primer then run in agarose gel. About 10 to 14 DNA bands ranging in size from about 0.3 kbp to 1.8 kbp were found. The PCR fingerprints were analyzed using PyElph software to check genetic distances of parental and mutant strains. By the end of this study, we have identified the genetic diversity between parental R. mucilaginosa and selected R. mucilaginosa mutant strains.