Abstract
Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (Omega-3 PUFA) are recognized as being essential compounds for human nutrition and health. The human body generates only low levels of Omega-3 PUFA. Conventional sources of Omega-3 PUFA are from marine origin. However, the global growth of population combined with a better consumer understanding about healthy nutrition leads to the fact that traditional sources are exhausted and therefore not enough to satisfy the demand of Omega-3 PUFA for human diet as well as aquaculture. Microalgae cultivated under heterotrophic conditions is increasingly recognized as a suitable technology for the production of the Omega-3 PUFA. The high cost of using glucose as main carbon source for cultivation is the main challenge to establish economical feasible production processes. The latest relevant studies provide alternative pathways for Omega-3 PUFA production. As preliminary results show, volatile fatty acids (VFA) recovered from waste stream could be a good alternative to the use of glucose as carbon source in microalgae cultivation. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the actual situation of Omega-3 PUFA production, sources and market request to provide a summary on sustainable sources that are being investigated as well as present and future market trends in Omega-3 market.
Highlights
Omega-3 PUFA are recognized as being essential compounds for human nutrition and health.Epidemiological studies on Greenland Inuit in the 1970s and subsequent human studies have established an inverse relationship between the ingestion of Omega-3 PUFA, blood levels of them and mortality associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) [1,2,3,4]
The main challenge in the use of heterotrophic microalgae to produce Omega -3 PUFA is associated with the high cost and environmental impact for the carbon sources to be used
Glucose is used as carbon source, and it may lead to around 80% of total cost of heterotrophic cultivation
Summary
Omega-3 PUFA are recognized as being essential compounds for human nutrition and health. Only alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and linoleic acid (LA) are strictly essential fatty acids for humans because they are the precursors of the other members of families Omega-3 and Omega-6 respectively [16] It is not known exactly what the optimal ratio between Omega-3/Omega-6 is, but several sources suggest that our ancestors survived on a diet that contained an Omega-6/Omega-3 ratio of 1–4:1, in contrast to the average diet of the current western population, where this ratio amounts to more than 15:1 [17,18,19]. Among other high value-added products, some specific microalgae produce long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as EPA and DHA [30] For this reason, numerous studies are being carried out to achieve a sustainable production of microalgae, with the aim to increase the production of Omega-3 PUFA [31,32,33]
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