Advantageous Preparation of Digested Proteic Extracts from Spirulina platensis Biomass

Abstract

Spirulina biomass has great nutritional value, but its proteins are not as well adsorbed as animal ones are. New functional food ingredients and metabolites can be obtained from spirulina, using different selective biodegradations of its biomass. Four enzyme-assisted extraction methods were independently studied, and their best operation conditions were determined. Enzymes were employed to increase the yield of easily adsorbed proteic extracts. A biomass pre-treatment using Alcalase® (pH 6.5, 1% v/w, and 30 °C) is described, which increased the extraction yield of hydrophilic biocomponents by 90% w/w compared to the simple solvent extraction. Alcalase® gives rise to 2.5–6.1 times more amino acids than the others and eight differential short peptides (438–1493 Da). These processes were scaled up and the extracts were analyzed. Higher destruction of cell integrity in the case of Alcalase® was also visualized by transmission electron microscopy. The described extractive technology uses cheap, commercial, food grade enzymes and hexane, accepted for food and drug safety. It is a promising process for a competitive biofactory, thanks to an efficient production of extracts with high applied potential in the nutrition, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industries.

Lactic Acid Bacteria Fermentation and Endopeptidase Treatment Improve the Functional and Nutritional Features of Arthrospira platensis

“…Alcalase ® 2.4 L FG (Novozymes, Denmark), a liquid commercial preparation of serine endopeptidase (EC. 3.4.21.62) obtained from Bacillus licheniformis (mainly subtilisin A; 27.3 kDa) that hydrolyzes amino esters including amino esters, was used in this study ( Verdasco-Martín et al, 2019 ).…”

“…To favor fermentation and Alcalase R activity, the pH of all the biomass suspensions, characterized by a pH value of circa 9, was adjusted to 6.6 by using sodium acetate buffer (1 M, pH 5.2). Enzymatic treatment with Alcalase R (1% vol/wt), was performed at 30 • C for 24 h as reported by Verdasco-Martín et al (2019), whereas fermentation was carried out with L. plantarum T0A10 (final cell density of circa 7 log10 cfu/g) at 30 • C for 24 h.…”

“…The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the combination of microbial and enzymatic treatments on the nutritional and functional features of Spirulina. Fermentation with selected strains of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum T0A10 already showing promising results in terms of bioactive peptides ( Rizzello et al, 2017 ) and enzyme-assisted extraction method using Alcalase ® as proposed by Verdasco-Martín et al (2019) were evaluated. Besides, aiming at evaluating the effect of drying on the nutritional quality, the above treatments were performed on wet, dried at low temperature, and lyophilized Spirulina biomasses.…”

Increased thermal stability of phycocyanin extracted from Spirulina platensis by cysteine addition during enzyme extraction

“…The cell membrane of spirulina is similar to that of gram-negative bacteria; it is composed of two lipid membrane layers (cellular and cytoplasmic), separated by a murein layer (Palinska & Krumbein, 2000). Murein is a rigid macromolecular structure formed from peptidoglycans and lipopolysaccharides (Verdasco-Martín et al, 2019). Decomposing such cell membranes require physical methods, enzymes, and chemical methods.…”

Biocatalysis and Pharmaceuticals: A Smart Tool for Sustainable Development

“…The article presented by Otero and coworkers [88] describes different extraction methods of high-value hydrophilic spirulina biocomponents (peptides of therapeutic interest), using four selective enzymatic degradations of spirulina biomass, catalyzed by two proteases and endo-and exoglucanases, illustrating the usefulness of biocatalysts in this applied field. The four enzyme-assisted extraction processes were optimized, determining best experimental conditions (pH, temperature, enzymatic loading or duration of enzymatic pre-treatment), and scaled up, showing a superior behavior compared to those extractions not employing enzymes.…”