Organic selenium fortification in edible marine microalga Nannochloropsis oceanica CASA CC201 for food and feed applications

Abstract

Selenium is an essential trace element that performs various biological functions (act as an antioxidant) in our body via a set of proteins called selenoproteins. Organic selenium sources include meat, fish, wheat, etc., which lose their selenium content to a significant extent while cooking and processing. New food sources fortified with organic Selenium are viable to meet selenium deficiency and associated health benefits. In the current study, an edible marine microalga Nannochloropsis oceanica CASA CC201 was developed for over 99 % organic selenium conversion by sequential strain improvement with Sodium selenite over several generations. Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis of these cultures has shown that there was a higher accumulation of total intracellular selenium content in the treated samples (565.4 μg Se/g DW) as compared to control (0.108 μg Se/g DW). Organic Se enriched N. ocecanica CASA CC201can withstand as high as 1000 μM sodium selenite without compromising its growth pattern and biomass yield. Collectively, the current study proposes that, an edible marine microalga N. oceanica CASA CC201 biomass with high organic Se content can serve as Selenium fortified food/feed additives with excellent antioxidant properties.