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Improving Cell Growth and Lipid Accumulation in Green Microalgae Chlorella sp. via UV Irradiation

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Abstract

Microalgae with high biomass and high lipid content are the ideal feedstock for biodiesel production. To obtain such microalgae, ultraviolet (UV) irradiation was applied to Chlorella sp. to induce mutagenesis. The growth characteristics, total nitrogen (TN), and biochemical compositions of the control and UV mutation strains were analyzed. Compared to the control strain, the biomass for the UV mutation strain was 7.6 % higher and it presented a higher growth rate. The lipid content of the UV mutation strain showed different levels of increase and reached the maximum value of 28.1 % on day 15. Furthermore, the lipid productivity of the UV mutation strain showed a desired increase. The nitrogen consumption and Acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) activity contributed to the lipid production by UV. All these results indicate that UV mutagenesis is an efficient method to improve probability for using Chlorella sp. as the potential raw material for biodiesel production.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Open Project of State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment (No. HC201323) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 50809037, 41430644, and 41273126), Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (No. IRT13078), and Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (13230500600), the special S&T project on treatment and control of water pollution (No. 2012ZX07201-003). The authors extend their sincere thanks to all the people in the Key Laboratory of Harbin Institute of Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environment and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 201800, People’s Republic of China

    Shuyu Liu, Yueping Zhao, Xiyong Ao & Minghong Wu

  2. Harbin Institute of Technology, State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin, 150090, People’s Republic of China

    Shuyu Liu & Fang Ma

  3. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida International University, Miami, FL, 33199, USA

    Li Liu

  4. Key Laboratory of East China Sea and Oceanic Fishery Resources Exploitation, Ministry of Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Shanghai, 200090, China

    Liyan Ma

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  1. Shuyu Liu
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  2. Yueping Zhao
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  3. Li Liu
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  4. Xiyong Ao
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  5. Liyan Ma
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  6. Minghong Wu
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  7. Fang Ma
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Correspondence to Minghong Wu or Fang Ma.

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Liu, S., Zhao, Y., Liu, L. et al. Improving Cell Growth and Lipid Accumulation in Green Microalgae Chlorella sp. via UV Irradiation. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 175, 3507–3518 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-015-1521-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-015-1521-6

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