Abstract: Palmitoleic acid(PA) is an Omega-7 monounsaturated fatty acid,it has significant value in nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals.Meanwhile,PA is also to be superior feedstock for producing biodiesel and 1-octene.Although PA is ubiquitous in oil crops,their contents are low.Moreover,some wild plants have high content of PA,but they have a problem of resource scarcity.Therefore,it is a novel pathway to use microalgae as feedstock to solve this problem,becausethey are rich in PA and suitable for large-scale cultivation.The physiological function of PA,its biosynthetic pathway in microalgae and separation and purification methods were mainly reviewed in this paper,in addition,the further research direction of PA was also prospected.

Key words: microalgae, palmitoleic acid, physiological function, biosynthetic pathway, separation and purification