The effect of phosphorus starvation on the fatty acid composition of Visheria strains

Abstract

Fatty acids are widely used in various fields: in medicine, agriculture, in the production of dietary supplement and biofuels, for the maintenance of aquaculture. The main source of fatty acids is fish oil. The relevance of the search for an alternative to fish oil as a source of fatty acids remains relevant today. Many microalgae accumulate fatty acids in quantities sufficient for use in biotechnology. Many studies are currently being conducted on the biochemistry of eustigmatophyceae algae. Most representatives of this class accumulate such polyunsaturated fatty acids as eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic, which are in demand in biotechnology, while maintaining the necessary growth rates of biomass. The strains of Vischeria vischeri described in this work were isolated from soil samples. The obtained fatty acid profiles show that the strains when growing on a BBM medium with a triple nitrogen concentration store a high percentage of saturated palmitic, monounsaturated palmitoleic and polyunsaturated eicosopentaenoic acids. In addition, one of the strains accumulates rare long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids: stearidonic acid, eicosodienoic acid, and digomo-γ-linoleic acid. Also, an experiment on phosphorus deprivation was conducted with these strains: as a result of this study, it was found that the composition of the fatty acids of the strains practically did not change, however, the concentrations of saturated and monounsaturated acids became higher, and polyunsaturated ones decreased. This trend in changes in the concentrations of fatty acids remained for all the described strains. The strains have been shown to accumulate long-chain saturated fatty acids: behenic and cerotic.