Screening of some Naturally Isolated Microalgal Strains for Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Production

Background and Purpose: Nowadays, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are playing a great role in human wellbeing and health improvement. A wide spectrum of biological, medical and health benefit effects ranging from cardiovascular, neuronal, anticancer and antioxidant have been reported from different PUFAs in human. Methodology: In this study, six different species of microalgae belonging to the chlorophyta and cyanobacteria phylum were isolated from soil and water samples collected from Persian Gulf. Their growth rate, biomass and lipid production and productivity and more importantly their ability to produce PUFAs was investigated. Results: The isolated species represented a great fatty acid profile including many different polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) ranging from 6-20 carbon atoms. S. obliquus and N. muscorum proven to have a better profile for PUFAs production, whilst C. vulgaris could be considered as a more robust strain to produce other fatty acid classes. Besides, C. vulgaris with its higher growth rates (0.39 d-1)and S. obliquus owing to its higher total lipid content (43.92%) seems more interesting strains for scale up studies. Conclusion: The obtained results demonstrated the great potential of naturally isolated strains of microalgae for PUFA production and provided some insights in next studies to explore more producing strains.