Mixotrophic cultivation of Galdieria sulphuraria for C-phycocyanin and protein production

Abiusi, Fabian; Fernández, Pedro Moñino; Canziani, Stefano; Janssen, Marcel; Wijffels, René H.; Barbosa, María J.

doi:10.1016/j.algal.2021.102603

Cited by 41 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Biomass productivity of an illuminated algal culture can be doubled by utilizing a mixotrophic cultivation strategy (Abiusi et al, 2020a(Abiusi et al, , 2022. In the current study, two acid tolerant strains, C. acidophila SAG 2045 and S. bacillaris ACUF158, demonstrated an increased growth rate when cultivated in the presence of glucose, while G. sulphuraria is known to be able to grow mixotrophically on glucose and glycerol (Sloth et al, 2006).…”

Section: Future Outlookmentioning

confidence: 67%

“…recent studies in a 2 L photobioreactor (Abiusi et al, 2021(Abiusi et al, , 2022. The data obtained from our flask incubator (Figure 1) therefore represents cultivation in a bench-scale photobioreactor.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…The most studied acidophilic microalgae species is G. sulphuraria with a growing research interest observed in the last decade (Sydney et al, 2019). Galdieria sulphuraria has been proposed as a novel source of protein (Abiusi et al, 2022), dietary fibers (Graziani et al, 2013), antioxidants (Carfagna et al, 2016) and of the blue pigment C-phycocyanin (Wan et al, 2016). For a long time, G. sulphuraria has been considered extremely photosensitive with light inhibition occurring at intensities above 200 μmol m −2 s −1 (Brock, 1978;Sloth et al, 2006) recently it was demonstrated (Abiusi et al, 2021); however, that G. sulphuraria ACUF064 can be cultivated at high light intensity by optimizing the specific light supply rate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cultivating microalgae at low pH can be a worthwhile strategy to prevent contaminants. Previous works indicated that G. sulphuraria can be cultivated axenically in a lab scale mixotrophic reactor for over a month (Abiusi et al, 2021(Abiusi et al, , 2022. Another work reports that at pH 2 G. sulphuraria was the main organism growing in unsterilized primary municipal waste water (Henkanatte-Gedera et al, 2017).…”

Section: Future Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, acidophilic microalgae have been envisaged as novel source of pigments such as lutein (Cuaresma et al, 2011) and C-phycocyanin (Abiusi et al, 2022). C-phycocyanin extracted from several members of the cyanidiales family, known acid and thermophilic organisms, have reportedly exceptional thermoand acid stability (Rahman et al, 2017;Ferraro et al, 2020a).…”

Section: Future Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Acid Tolerant and Acidophilic Microalgae: An Underexplored World of Biotechnological Opportunities

et al. 2022

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Despite their large number and diversity, microalgae from only four genera are currently cultivated at large-scale. Three of those share common characteristics: they are cultivated mainly autotrophically and are extremophiles or tolerate “extreme conditions.” Extreme growth conditions aid in preventing contamination and predation of microalgae, therefore facilitating outdoor cultivation. In search for new extremophilic algae suitable for large-scale production, we investigated six microalgal strains able to grow at pH below 3 and belonging to four genera; Stichococcus bacillaris ACUF158, Chlamydomonas acidophila SAG 2045, and Chlamydomonas pitschmannii ACUF238, Viridiella fridericiana ACUF035 and Galdieria sulphuraria ACUF064 and ACUF074. All strains were cultivated autotrophically at light intensity of 100 and 300 μmol m−2 s−1 and pH between 1.9 and 2.9. The autotrophic biomass productivities were compared with one of the most productive microalgae, Chlorella sorokiniana SAG 211-8K, grown at pH 6.8. The acid tolerant strains have their autotrophic biomass productivities reported for the first time. Mixotrophic and heterotrophic properties were investigated when possible. Five of the tested strains displayed autotrophic biomass productivities 10–39% lower than Chlorella sorokiniana but comparable with other commercially relevant neutrophilic microalgae, indicating the potential of these microalgae for autotrophic biomass production under acidic growth conditions. Two acid tolerant species, S. bacillaris and C. acidophila were able to grow mixotrophically with glucose. Chlamydomonas acidophila and the two Galdieria strains were also cultivated heterotrophically with glucose at various temperatures. Chlamydomonas acidophila failed to grow at 37°C, while G. sulphuraria ACUF64 showed a temperature optimum of 37°C and G. sulphuraria ACUF74 of 42°C. For each strain, the biomass yield on glucose decreased when cultivated above their optimal temperature. The possible biotechnological applications of our findings will be addressed.

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Section: Future Outlookmentioning

confidence: 67%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Future Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Future Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Acid Tolerant and Acidophilic Microalgae: An Underexplored World of Biotechnological Opportunities

et al. 2022

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Scale‐down of oxygen and glucose fluctuations in a tubular photobioreactor operated under oxygen‐balanced mixotrophy

Fernández

García

Jansen

et al. 2023

Biotech & Bioengineering

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Oxygen-balanced mixotrophy (OBM) is a novel type of microalgal cultivation that improves autotrophic productivity while reducing aeration costs and achieving high biomass yields on substrate. The scale-up of this process is not straightforward, as nonideal mixing in large photobioreactors might have unwanted effects in cell physiology. We simulated at lab scale dissolved oxygen and glucose fluctuations in a tubular photobioreactor operated under OBM where glucose is injected at the beginning of the tubular section. We ran repeated batch experiments with the strain Galdieria sulphuraria ACUF 064 under glucose pulse feeding of different lengths, representing different retention times: 112, 71, and 21 min. During the long and medium tube retention time simulations, dissolved oxygen was depleted 15-25 min after every glucose pulse. These periods of oxygen limitation resulted in the accumulation of coproporphyrin III in the supernatant, an indication of disruption in the chlorophyll synthesis pathway. Accordingly, the absorption cross-section of the cultures decreased steeply, going from values of 150-180 m 2 kg −1 at the end of the first batch down to 50-70 m 2 kg −1 in the last batches of both conditions. In the short tube retention time simulation, dissolved oxygen always stayed above 10% air saturation and no pigment reduction nor coproporphyrin III accumulation were observed. Concerning glucose utilization efficiency, glucose pulse feeding caused a reduction of biomass yield on substrate in the range of 4%-22% compared to the maximum levels previously obtained with continuous glucose feeding (0.9 C-g C-g −1 ).The missing carbon was excreted to the supernatant as extracellular polymeric substances constituted by carbohydrates and proteins. Overall, the results point out the importance of studying large-scale conditions in a controlled environment and the need for a highly controlled glucose feeding strategy in the scale-up of mixotrophic cultivation.

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Substrate and nutrient manipulation during continuous cultivation of extremophilic algae, Galdieria spp. RTK 37.1, substantially impacts biomass productivity and composition

Buckeridge,

Caballero,

Smith

et al. 2024

Biotech & Bioengineering

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The extremophilic nature and metabolic flexibility of Galdieria spp. highlights their potential for biotechnological application. However, limited research into continuous cultivation of Galdieria spp. has slowed progress towards the commercialization of these algae. The objective of this research was to investigate biomass productivity and growth yields during continuous photoautotrophic, mixotrophic and heterotrophic cultivation of Galdieria sp. RTK371; a strain recently isolated from within the Taupō Volcanic Zone in Aotearoa‐New Zealand. Results indicate Galdieria sp. RTK371 grows optimally at pH 2.5 under warm white LED illumination. Photosynthetic O2 production was dependent on lighting intensity with a maximal value of (133.5 ± 12.1 nmol O2 mgbiomass−1 h−1) achieved under 100 μmol m−2 s−1 illumination. O2 production rates slowed significantly to 42 ± 1 and <0.01 nmol O2 mgbiomass−1 h−1 during mixotrophic and heterotrophic growth regimes respectively. Stable, long‐term chemostat growth of Galdieria sp. RTK371 was achieved during photoautotrophic, mixotrophic and heterotrophic growth regimes. During periods of ammonium limitation, Galdieria sp. RTK371 increased its intracellular carbohydrate content (up to 37% w/w). In contrast, biomass grown in ammonium excess was composed of up to 65% protein (w/w). Results from this study demonstrate that the growth of Galdieria sp. RTK371 can be manipulated during continuous cultivation to obtain desired biomass and product yields over long cultivation periods.

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Mixotrophic cultivation of Galdieria sulphuraria for C-phycocyanin and protein production

Cited by 41 publications

References 47 publications

Acid Tolerant and Acidophilic Microalgae: An Underexplored World of Biotechnological Opportunities

Acid Tolerant and Acidophilic Microalgae: An Underexplored World of Biotechnological Opportunities

Scale‐down of oxygen and glucose fluctuations in a tubular photobioreactor operated under oxygen‐balanced mixotrophy

Substrate and nutrient manipulation during continuous cultivation of extremophilic algae, Galdieria spp. RTK 37.1, substantially impacts biomass productivity and composition

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