Comaprison Of Rate Of Synthesis And Content Of Lipid Glycerol And Total Glycerol In <i>Dunaliella tertiolecta</i> And Its Salt-Sensitive Mutant, HL 25/8

285-287Salt-sensitive mutant (HL 25/8) of D. tertiolecta synthesized glycerol at about half the rate of its parental strain, and unlike the parent strain, did not have a much higher rate of glycerol synthesis when grown in 0.7 M NaCl compared with 0.17 M NaCl. The turnover times of total glycerol pool in the mutant were about double of those of the parent strain. Rates of lipid glycerol synthesis and lipid glycerol content were determined for both strains grown in 0.17 and 0.7 M NaCl. The rate of lipid glycerol synthesis was, in all cases, &lt; 2% of the rate of total glycerol synthesis. The lipid glycerol content was small compared to the total glycerol content and was similar in each strain whether grown in low or high salt. It is concluded that the transfer of glycerol to or from the lipid glycerol pool can have no significant role in the large changes of free glycerol content that accompany osmotic stress in Dunaliella