Quantitative and structural characteristics of lipids in Chlorobium and Chloroflexus

The lipid compositions of Chlorobium limicola (4 strains) and Chloroflexus aurantiacus (2 strains) have been compared. Both species contained straight-chain, saturated and monosaturated fatty acids as their main fatty acid constituents but the patterns were distinctly different. Chlorobium contained acids of chain-length essentally in the range C12−C18 with n-tetradecanoate, hexadecenoate and n-hexadecanoate predominating. Chloroflexus was characterized by the presence of significant amounts of C17 and C18−C20 fatty acids not detected in Chlorobium. The latter, on the other hand, contained hydroxylated and cyclopropane-substituted acids not detected in Chloroflexus. Simple wax esters (C28−C38) were found solely in Chloroflexus and accounted for 2.5–3.0% of the cell dry weight. Their fatty acid constituents ranged from C12−C19 (both saturated and monounsaturated isomers) whereas the alcohols were generally saturated and of chain-length C16−C19. Waxes in the range C34−C36 accounted for more than 60% of the total.