abstract
Porphyridium purpureum is a red saline microalga rich in protein and floridean starch with the ability to excrete high amounts of sulfated polysaccharides (sEPS) into the growth medium. This microalga has been used for feeding fish in aquaculture. P. purpureum is easily cultivated and could change its growth rate and composition in response to environmental variations. Thus, the effect of growth medium salinity (18, 32, and 50 g/L NaCl) on P. purpureum cell growth, biomass composition, and extracellular polysaccharides production yield and chemical structure were evaluated. A maximum growth of an estimated 5.7 x 10(6) cells/mL achieved at a salinity of 32 g/L NaCl, after 19 days of growth. Different from the almost unchanged biomass composition of algal cells, the yield and structure of sEPS were affected by the salinity of the growth media. The salinity of the growth media led to a slight change of the sulfation pattern of the glucuronoglucogalactoxylan, as the sEPS produced by P. purpureum growing at lower salinity tended to be more sulfated in the O-3 position of xylose and the O-6 position of glucose, whereas the sEPS at higher salinity tended to be more sulfated in the O-4 position of xylose and glucose. The sEPS produced at higher salinity also revealed higher linear 2-Gal, 3-Gal, and 4-Gal residues. In all samples, the most representative sugars residues were constituted by t-Xyl, t-Xyl-4S, 3-Xyl, 4-Xyl, t-Glc, 3-Glc-6S, t-Gal, and 2,3,4-Gal. The sEPS showed immunostimulatory effect on B lymphocytes in vitro and could be produced at large scale at an outdoor 800 L-flat panel photobioreactor with higher yield. These results pave the way for the potential use of P. purpureum sEPS to enhance humoral immune activity of fish in aquaculture.
keywords
MOLECULAR-WEIGHT POLYSACCHARIDES; EXTRACELLULAR POLYSACCHARIDE; EICOSAPENTAENOIC ACID; CRUENTUM; MICROALGAE; PHYCOERYTHRIN; CARBOHYDRATE; EXTRACTION; EFFICIENCY; HYDROLYSIS
subject category
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
authors
Ferreira, AS; Mendonca, I; Povoa, I; Carvalho, H; Correia, A; Vilanova, M; Silva, TH; Coimbra, MA; Nunes, C
our authors
Cláudia Nunes
Assistant ResearcherProjects
CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials (UIDB/50011/2020)
CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials (UIDP/50011/2020)
Collaboratory for Emerging Technologies, CoLab (EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES)
acknowledgements
Thanks are due to the University of Aveiro and FCT/MCT; CICECO; FCT for the financial support of the LAQV-REQUIMTE (UIDB/50006/2020) and CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (UIDB/50011/2020 & UIDP/50011/2020) projects financed by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology/MCTES. Andreia S. Ferreira thanks FCT for the individual grant (SFRH/BD/102471/2014) . AC was supported by FCT through Stimulus of Scientific Employment - Individual Support 2017 (CEECIND/01514/2017) . This work was also funded by national funds (OE) , through FCT, I.P., within the scope of the framework contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5 and 6 of the article 23, of the Decree-Law 57/2016, of August 29, changed by Law 57/2017, of July 19. We are grateful to Necton S.A. for enable the P. purpureum cultivation.