Light Intensity and Nitrogen Concentration Impact on the Biomass and Phycoerythrin Production by Porphyridium purpureum.

Juan Eduardo Sosa-Hernández,Robert W Lovitt,Carlos Castillo-Zacarías,Carole A Llewellyn,Claudio Fuentes Grunewald,Magdalena Rostro-Alanís,Hafiz M N Iqbal,Reynaldo De La Cruz,Roberto Parra-Saldívar,Laura Isabel Rodas-Zuluaga,Carmen Salinas-Salazar,Danay Carrillo-Nieves,Eugenia J Olguín

doi:10.3390/md17080460

Juan Eduardo Sosa-Hernández, Robert W Lovitt + Show 11 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/md17080460

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Abstract

Several factors have the potential to influence microalgae growth. In the present study, nitrogen concentration and light intensity were evaluated in order to obtain high biomass production and high phycoerythrin accumulation from Porphyridium purpureum. The range of nitrogen concentrations evaluated in the culture medium was 0.075–0.450 g L−1 and light intensities ranged between 30 and 100 μmol m−2 s−1. Surprisingly, low nitrogen concentration and high light intensity resulted in high biomass yield and phycoerythrin accumulation. Thus, the best biomass productivity (0.386 g L−1 d−1) and biomass yield (5.403 g L−1) were achieved with NaNO3 at 0.075 g L−1 and 100 μmol m−2 s−1. In addition, phycoerythrin production was improved to obtain a concentration of 14.66 mg L−1 (2.71 mg g−1 of phycoerythrin over dry weight). The results of the present study indicate that it is possible to significantly improve biomass and pigment production in Porphyridium purpureum by limiting nitrogen concentration and light intensity.

Highlights

Phycoerythrin (PE) is a bioactive pigment mainly found in Rhodophyta, but it can be recovered from Cyanobacteria [1]
The Gompertz model was used with the same conditions from the experimental results
The comparison between experimental and modeled results shows that the Gompertz model can be used correctly for modeling the Phorphyridium purpureum culture within the presented ranges of light intensities and NaNO3

Summary

Introduction

Phycoerythrin (PE) is a bioactive pigment mainly found in Rhodophyta, but it can be recovered from Cyanobacteria [1]. This water-soluble pigment is a bioactive molecule with interesting properties such as anti-inflammatory, immunosuppressive, antitumor, antioxidant, antidiabetic, and antihypertensive effects [2,3,4,5]. Commercial PE from microalgae has been produced by Spirulina, Rhodella, and Porphyridium [10,11,12]. The market price of this purified pigment is around $200 USD mg−1 (Sigma-Aldrich, product number: 52412-1MG-F), this being why PE is regarded as a molecule of high value [13]. Porphyridium purpureum has the ability to grow in

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Conclusion