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Effects of nitrogen and phosphorous stress on the formation of high value LC-PUFAs in Porphyridium cruentum

  • Bioenergy and biofuels
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Abstract

This study systematically examined the effect of nitrogen and phosphorous stress on the formation of linoleic acid (LA), arachidonic acid (ARA), and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) in Porphyridium cruentum gy-h56. P. cruentum was cultivated in six different media conferring different conditions of nitrogen (N) sufficiency/deprivation and phosphorous (P) sufficiency/limitation/deprivation. Over a 16-day cultivation process, the dry-weight content, proportion of total fatty acids (TFAs), and the concentration in the medium of linoleic acid (LA) were greatly improved by a maximum of 2.5-, 1.6-, and 1.1-fold, respectively, under conditions of N or P deprivation compared with N and P sufficiency. In contrast, levels of EPA or ARA were not enhanced under N or P stress conditions. Additionally, the results showed that N deprivation weakened the impact of P deficiency on the content and proportions of LA and EPA, while P deprivation enhanced the impact of N starvation on the content and proportions of LA and EPA. The conditions of N sufficiency and P deprivation (N+P−) were the optimal conditions for the production of LA, while the optimal conditions for EPA, ARA, and TFAs production were N sufficiency and P limitation (N+P−lim). This study suggests the potential application of combining N removal from saline wastewater with the production of LA, ARA, EPA, and biodiesel.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, the Programme for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, People’s Republic of China

    Hao Hu, Hou-Feng Wang, Lin-Lin Ma, Xiao-Fei Shen & Raymond Jianxiong Zeng

  2. Anhui Water Conservancy College, Hefei, 231603, People’s Republic of China

    Hao Hu

  3. Advanced Laboratory for Environmental Research and Technology, USTC-CityU, Suzhou, 215123, People’s Republic of China

    Lin-Lin Ma, Xiao-Fei Shen & Raymond Jianxiong Zeng

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  1. Hao Hu
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  2. Hou-Feng Wang
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  5. Raymond Jianxiong Zeng
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Correspondence to Raymond Jianxiong Zeng.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Hao Hu and Hou-Feng Wang contributed to the work equally and should be regarded as co-first authors

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Hu, H., Wang, HF., Ma, LL. et al. Effects of nitrogen and phosphorous stress on the formation of high value LC-PUFAs in Porphyridium cruentum. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 102, 5763–5773 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-018-8943-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-018-8943-3

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