DETAILED DESCRIPTION In accordance with the present invention, there is used a customary animal fat, vegetable oil or synthetic oil as the fats.
Typical examples of such a fat or oil are, for instance, olive oil, palm oil, shea butter, soybean oil, cotton seed oil, beef tallow, lard, fish tallow, and the like.
The fatty acid usable in the present invention is a fatty acid having 8 to 20 carbon atoms of a natural product.
Typical examples of such a fatty acid are, for instance, stearic acid, palmitic acid, oleic acid, linoleic acid, and the like.
When a saturated fatty acid of high carbon atoms, which has a high melting point of 60.
degree.
to 80.
degree.
C.
, is used, there can be used as a solvent to dissolve the fatty acid a hydrocarbon such as hexane or heptane; an ether such as ethylether or propylether; an ester such as methyl acetate or ethyl acetate; benzene; acetone; and the like.
The dry cell of the present invention does not lose its activity and can act as a catalyst in the exemplified solvents.
The dry cell used in the present invention is prepared from any microorganism which produces lipase Typical examples of such a microorganism suitable for the present invention are, for instance, microorganisms belonging to a genus Rhizopus, Mucor, Aspergillus, Candida, Geotrichum, and the like.
For the purpose of preparing the exemplified microorganism effectively as a catalyst, it is important to cultivate the microorganism so that the microorganism contains a large amount of lipase in its body and to dry the cultivated microorganism so that lipase in the microorganism can easily come in contact with the fats or the fatty acids.
It is the second aspect of the present invention to provide a dry cell employable in the interesterification reaction of fats as a catalyst.
In accordance with the present invention, there can be obtained a dry cell which has an action to accelerate the interesterification reaction and to keep the reaction rate constantly high for a long time, by cultivating a microorganism containing lipase where at the beginning or on the way of the cultivation is added a glyceride or a fatty acid as an inducer for inducing lipase 1 to 80% by weight in culture solution, washing the obtained microorganism with a water-soluble solvent, and then, drying the microorganism to a water content of 1 to 20% by weight of the dry cell
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Molecular Biology 
