Biotechnology of Algae

A special issue of Marine Drugs (ISSN 1660-3397). This special issue belongs to the section "Marine Biotechnology Related to Drug Discovery or Production".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2024 | Viewed by 4804

Special Issue Editors

LEPABE – Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy, Faculty of Engineering, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
Interests: algal biotechnology; microalgae; cyanobacteria; seaweeds; bioactive compounds; algal process optimization; algal extraction; wastewater treatment; applications of algae biomass
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
CIIMAR - Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, University of Porto, Matosinhos, Portugal
Interests: microalgae; cyanobacteria; macroalgae (seaweed); bioactive compounds; pigments; PUFAs; phenolic compounds; polysaccharides; secondary metabolites; antioxidant; anti-inflammatory; antibacterial; antiviral; antitumoral
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,                

Algae are a diverse group of organisms with a vital role in the marine environment. Whereas microalgae constitute the basis of the marine and aquatic food chain, macroalgae provide countless coastal ecosystem services. Both significantly contribute to global primary production and play an important role in carbon sequestration. Algae are considered green cell factories as they provide a wide pool of biomolecules, cellular functions, and physiological features, with vast biotechnological potential. Moreover, algae are stated as an important tool towards the EU Bioeconomy and Blue Growth Strategy, which aims to implement a sustainable and circular bioeconomy in which blue biotechnology is among the priority targets.

Hence, this Special Issue will focus on algal technologies, methodologies, products, and services with efforts towards a blue economy. We welcome the submission of research articles, review articles, and short communications about marine algae (cyanobacteria, microalgae, and seaweeds) biotechnology, including:

  • Algal ecoservices;
  • Biorefinery strategy;
  • Circular bioeconomy;
  • New species or improvement of known species;
  • Optimization of high-value compounds;
  • Optimization of cultivation/production of algal biomass and their products.

Dr. Helena Amaro
Dr. Ana Catarina Guedes
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Marine Drugs is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • bioactive compounds
  • biofuels
  • biomass production
  • biorefinery
  • circular economy
  • CO2 sequestrations
  • cosmetics
  • cyanobacteria
  • ecosystems services
  • food/feed
  • IMTA
  • LCA
  • macroalgae
  • nutraceuticals
  • pharmaceuticals
  • seaweed
  • water treatment

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 2648 KiB  
Article
Optimization of Heterotrophic Culture Conditions for the Microalgae Euglena gracilis to Produce Proteins
by Weiying Xie, Xiaojie Li, Huo Xu, Feng Chen, Ka-Wing Cheng, Hongbin Liu and Bin Liu
Mar. Drugs 2023, 21(10), 519; https://doi.org/10.3390/md21100519 - 29 Sep 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1368
Abstract
Euglena gracilis is one of the few permitted edible microalgae. Considering consumer acceptance, E. gracilis grown heterotrophically with yellow appearances have wider food industrial applications such as producing meat analogs than green cells. However, there is much room to improve the protein content [...] Read more.
Euglena gracilis is one of the few permitted edible microalgae. Considering consumer acceptance, E. gracilis grown heterotrophically with yellow appearances have wider food industrial applications such as producing meat analogs than green cells. However, there is much room to improve the protein content of heterotrophic culture cells. In this study, the effects of nitrogen sources, temperature, initial pH, and C/N ratios on the protein production of E. gracilis were evaluated under heterotrophic cultivation. These results indicated that ammonium sulfate was the optimal nitrogen source for protein production. The protein content of E. gracilis cultured by ammonium sulfate increased by 113% and 44.7% compared with that cultured by yeast extract and monosodium glutamate, respectively. The manipulation of the low C/N ratio further improved E. gracilis protein content to 66.10% (w/w), which was 1.6-fold of that in the C/N = 25 group. Additionally, amino acid analysis revealed that the nitrogen-to-protein conversion factor (NTP) could be affected by nitrogen sources. A superior essential amino acid index (EAAI) of 1.62 and a balanced amino acid profile further confirmed the high nutritional value of E. gracilis protein fed by ammonium sulfate. This study highlighted the vast potency of heterotrophic cultured E. gracilis as an alternative dietary protein source. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biotechnology of Algae)
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12 pages, 2051 KiB  
Article
Comparing the Ability of Secretory Signal Peptides for Heterologous Expression of Anti-Lipopolysaccharide Factor 3 in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
by Huilin Zhuang, Yaohui Ou, Ruoyu Chen, Danqiong Huang and Chaogang Wang
Mar. Drugs 2023, 21(6), 346; https://doi.org/10.3390/md21060346 - 04 Jun 2023
Viewed by 1220
Abstract
Anti-lipopolysaccharide factor 3 (ALFPm3) possesses a wide antimicrobial spectrum and high antibacterial and viral activities for broad application prospects in the aquaculture industry. However, the application of ALFPm3 is limited by its low production in nature, as well as [...] Read more.
Anti-lipopolysaccharide factor 3 (ALFPm3) possesses a wide antimicrobial spectrum and high antibacterial and viral activities for broad application prospects in the aquaculture industry. However, the application of ALFPm3 is limited by its low production in nature, as well as its low activity when expressed in Escherichia coli and yeast. Although it has been proven that its secretory expression can be used to produce antimicrobial peptides with strong antimicrobial activity, there is no study on the high-efficiency secretory expression of ALFPm3 in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. In this study, signal peptides ARS1 and CAH1 were fused with ALFPm3 and inserted into the pESVH vector to construct pH-aALF and pH-cALF plasmids, respectively, that were transformed to C. reinhardtii JUV using the glass bead method. Subsequently, through antibiotic screening, DNA-PCR, and RT-PCR, transformants expressing ALFPm3 were confirmed and named T-JaA and T-JcA, respectively. The peptide ALFPm3 could be detected in algal cells and culture medium by immunoblot, meaning that ALFPm3 was successfully expressed in C. reinhardtii and secreted into the extracellular environment. Moreover, ALFPm3 extracts from the culture media of T-JaA and T-JcA showed significant inhibitory effects on the growth of V. harveyi, V. alginolyticus, V. anguillarum, and V. parahaemolyticus within 24 h. Interestingly, the inhibitory rate of c-ALFPm3 from T-JcA against four Vibrio was 2.77 to 6.23 times greater than that of a-ALFPm3 from T-JaA, indicating that the CAH1 signal peptide was more helpful in enhancing the secreted expression of the ALFPm3 peptide. Our results provided a new strategy for the secretory production of ALFPm3 with high antibacterial activity in C. reinhardtii, which could improve the application potentiality of ALFPm3 in the aquaculture industry. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biotechnology of Algae)
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16 pages, 2920 KiB  
Article
Bioconversion of Cheese Whey and Food By-Products by Phaeodactylum tricornutum into Fucoxanthin and n-3 Lc-PUFA through a Biorefinery Approach
by Giovanni Luca Russo, Antonio Luca Langellotti, Vito Verardo, Beatriz Martín-García, Maria Oliviero, Marco Baselice, Prospero Di Pierro, Angela Sorrentino, Sharon Viscardi, Luis Marileo, Raffaele Sacchi and Paolo Masi
Mar. Drugs 2023, 21(3), 190; https://doi.org/10.3390/md21030190 - 19 Mar 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1749
Abstract
This study investigates the potential of utilizing three food wastes: cheese whey (CW), beet molasses (BM), and corn steep liquor (CSL) as alternative nutrient sources for the cultivation of the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, a promising source of polyunsaturated eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and [...] Read more.
This study investigates the potential of utilizing three food wastes: cheese whey (CW), beet molasses (BM), and corn steep liquor (CSL) as alternative nutrient sources for the cultivation of the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, a promising source of polyunsaturated eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and the carotenoid fucoxanthin. The CW media tested did not significantly impact the growth rate of P. tricornutum; however, CW hydrolysate significantly enhances cell growth. BM in cultivation medium enhances biomass production and fucoxanthin yield. The optimization of the new food waste medium was conducted through the application of a response surface methodology (RSM) using hydrolyzed CW, BM, and CSL as factors. The results showed a significant positive impact of these factors (p < 0.005), with an optimized biomass yield of 2.35 g L−1 and a fucoxanthin yield of 3.64 mg L−1 using a medium composed of 33 mL L−1 of CW, 2.3 g L−1 of BM, and 2.24 g L−1 of CSL. The experimental results reported in this study showed that some food by-products from a biorefinery perspective could be utilized for the efficient production of fucoxanthin and other high-added-value products such as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biotechnology of Algae)
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