Abstract
Plankton filament cyanobacteria Prochlorothrix hollandica is characterized by a very high content of C 14 and C 16 fatty acids (FA) in the lipid membranes. Depending on culturing conditions of the cyanobacteria, total concentrations of myristic and myristoleic acids can reach 35% and those of palmitic and palmitoleic acids can reach 60% of all esterified FA cells. In P. hollandica , a variety of monounsaturated FA is represented by myristoleic and palmitic acids, and by hexadecenoic (C 16:1 ) acid with olefin bond of cis -configuration, located in the Δ4 position. The process of intensive culturing for P. hollandica cells to yield a maximal biomass in order to isolate the pure drug of myristoleic acid derivative has been optimized. The use of a threestage purification gives 30 mg of chromatographically pure myristoleic acid methyl ester from 17 g of P. hollandica raw biomass (dry mass is 3 g), which is 1% of dry cell mass.