Abstract
The lipid productivity controlled by both of biomass and lipid content was really crucial for economic-feasibility of microalgae-based biofuels production. This study attempted at augmenting lipid productivity in an emerging oleaginous model alga Coccomyxa subellipsoidea by different nitrogen manipulation including one-stage continuous N-sufficiency (OCNS), N-deprivation (OCND), N-limitation (OCNL), and also two-stage batch N-starvation (TBNS). Amongst four tested nitrogen manipulation strategies, OCNS performed remarkable promoting effect on cell metabolic growth and the maximum biomass was achieved by 7.39 g/L. Whereas TBNS regime induced the highest lipid content (over 50.5%). Only OCNL treatment augmented the lipid productivity by 232.37 mg/L/day, representing 1.25-fold more than TBNS and even as much as 5.06-fold more than that of OCND strategy. OCNL also strengthened the proportions of saturated (C16:0 and C18:0) and monounsaturated fatty acid (C18:1) which were inclined to high-quality biofuels-making. This might be due to that most part of energy and metabolic flux (e.g. acetyl-CoA) derived from TCA cycle and glycolysis flowed into fatty acids biosynthesis pathway (especially C18:1) response to OCNL manipulation. This study represented a pioneering work of utilizing OCNL for lipids production by C. subellipsoidea and clearly implied that OCNL might be a feasible way for algal lipid production on a commercial scale and also promoted the potential of C. subellipsoidea as an ideal biodiesel feedstock.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (21676228) and Scientific Research Fund of Hunan Provincial Education Department (16B254), Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (2017JJ3300), and Collaborative Innovation Center of New Chemical Technologies for Environmental Benignity and Efficient Resource Utilization.
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Wang, C., Wang, Z., Luo, F. et al. The augmented lipid productivity in an emerging oleaginous model alga Coccomyxa subellipsoidea by nitrogen manipulation strategy. World J Microbiol Biotechnol 33, 160 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-017-2324-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-017-2324-4