Fig 3.

Gene deletion and wax ester production rescue studies. (A) Quantities of wax esters obtained from replicate cultures of wild-type M. aquaeolei VT8 cells under wax ester-accumulating conditions versus the two single-gene deletion strains and the double deletion strain. Two hundred milligrams of dried cell mass was extracted in each case. Error bars represent the standard deviations of the three samples. (B) Gas chromatograms illustrating the results of studies with wild-type cells and the ΔacrB::kan ΔfarA double deletion strain grown under normal wax accumulation conditions and under the same conditions with added extraneous pentadecanol, resulting in the accumulation of odd-numbered wax esters (for the wild type) and the rescue of wax ester production based on only these odd-numbered alcohols (for the double deletion).