The filamentous fungusmortierella alpina, high in arachidonic acid

Abstract Arachidonic acid is not available readily, although it is widely distributed in animal tissue. We found that in some strains of Mortierella alpina , arachidonic acid accounted for 68.5–78.8% of the total fatty acids. This is more than twice the arachidonic acid content of any organism previously reported. The content of arachidonic acid per dry cell weight was about 25%. Our findings offer a method for the efficient isolation of arachidonic acid in large amounts.