神经酰胺是生物体内的一种脂类物质，存在于酵母、植物、哺乳动物中。它与细胞的增殖、分化、凋亡等都有关系，在工业应用中主要作为化妆品的重要活性因子而行使功能。但目前工业用神经酰胺主要提取自牛脑，价格昂贵，易受疯牛病影响，因此迫切需要寻找一种能经济安全生产神经酰胺的方法。本论文研究了解脂假丝酵母Candida lipolitica中神经酰胺的分析、提取，纯化，并研究了培养基组分和发酵条件对酵母神经酰胺积累的影响。取得了如下的结果：以薄层色谱，质谱，红外等手段辅助，结合新型的蒸发光散射检测器，在硅胶柱和氰基柱上实现了酵母脂类粗提液中神经酰胺的定性与定量分析。在氰基柱上，正己烷：乙醇体系可将神经酰胺与其它脂类有效分离，以峰面积与样品浓度作双对数曲线则可定量检测样品中神经酰胺含量，从而建立起了一种简便的神经酰胺分析方法。为纯化脂类抽提物中的神经酰胺，在自制硅胶层析柱上采用石油醚：乙酸乙酯：丙酮体系，利用三步洗脱的方法，可方便地除去酵母脂类中的大量其它脂类，得到较纯的神经酰胺组分。为提高酵母生产神经酰胺的水平，本文研究了培养基成分与培养环境对神经酰胺积累的影响。在各种可能的因素中，提高溶氧与乙醇刺激均能增加细胞内神经酰胺含量，在这两种条件下其占细胞干重的含量分别比对照提高2.5倍及3.3倍。

Ceramides are widely distributed lipid molecules in eukaryotic cells, such as yeast, plant, mammalian cells. They play important roles in cell proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis. In application they are regarded as an important active ingredient in cosmetic industry. Currently ceramides are mainly obtained from bovine brain, which are expensive and vulnerable to mad-cow disease. Our purpose is to find an alternative way to produce ceramides safely and economically.This paper focuses on the analysis, fermentative production, extraction, purification of ceramides produced from yeast Candida lipolitica. The effect of medium components and culture conditions on ceramide production were also investigated. The following results have been achieved in this study:By utilizing high performance liquid chromatography combined with evaporative light scattering detector, the separation and quantitation of ceramides from other impurities in yeast crude lipid extracts was achieved on cyano column. Thin layer chromatography, mass spectrometry, infra-red spectrometry were also applied to confirm the existence of ceramides. Cyano column was more preferable in daily analysis, the elute could separate ceramides, the double log curve of the peak area-sample concentration could determine the amount of ceramides, thus a simple and convenient analysis method was set up for ceramides analysis.A three-step elution scheme was developed on a self-made silica chromatography column to purify ceramides from yeast crude lipids extracts. The elution program could remove other lipid and obtain pure ceramides. The method could serve as a preparation for large scale production of ceramides.To enhance the productivity of yeast ceramides, the medium compositions and culture conditions were investigated on their effect on ceramide production. Among the factors tested, oxygen supply and ethanol treatment enhanced the ceramide content from 2.5‰ to 8.4‰ of dry cell weight, while other factors have no obvious effect, some even reduced the ceramide production levels.