Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Tanta University, 31527 Tanta, Egypt
2
Protein Research Department., Genetic Engineering & Biotech Institute, City for Scientific Research, New Borg El-Arab, 21934 Alexandria, Egypt
3
Protein Research Department., Genetic Engineering & Biotech Institute, City for Scientific Research, New Borg El-Arab, 21934 Alexandria, Egypt.
Abstract
Arthrospira platensis is a non toxic edible cyanobacterium which
contains high amounts of various valuable nutrients such as essential
amino acids, essential fatty acids and carotenoids. It also contains
compounds having medicinal effects, such as phycocyanin and
different polysaccharides. The present study examined the effect of
nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and salinity on biomass, lipid, protein,
carbohydrate and phycocyanin productivities of Arthrospira platensis.
Decreasing nitrogen to 50 % than the concentration mentioned in the
modified Zarrouk medium resulted in a reduction of biomass, lipid,
protein, carotenoids and phycocyanin productivities by 20, 12, 20, 2
and 32 %, respectively. While 100 % phosphorus deficiency enhanced
lipids and carotenoids productivities by 128 % and 64 %, respectively,
with 25 % reduction in biomass. In addition, sulfur limitation led to
280 % increase in carbohydrate productivity with insignificant
changes in biomass productivity. Finally, increasing salinity caused
significant increase of lipid, carbohydrate and carotenoids
productivities up to 93, 84 and 64 %, respectively. Whereas,
increasing salt concentration, increased lipid and carotenoid
productivities. The present study showed that phosphorus and sulfur
deficiencies and high salinity increased the productivity of some
valuable products of Arthrospira platensis. Therefore alteration of
growth conditions changes its nutritional compounds. This means that
we could obtain Arthrospira with different nutritional composition by
altering the composition of cultivation medium.
Keywords
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