A comparative study: the impact of different lipid extraction methods on current microalgal lipid research

Microbial Cell Factories

Research

Wael Abdul Ghafor¹  Kristofer J Thurecht¹  Sourabh Garg²  Peer M Schenk²  Forough Ghasemi Naghdi²  Simon Tannock²  Tania Catalina Adarme-Vega²  Yan Li³ 

[1] Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and Centre for Advanced Imaging, The University of Queensland, 4072, Brisbane, QLD, Australia;School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, The University of Queensland, 4072, Brisbane, QLD, Australia;School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, The University of Queensland, 4072, Brisbane, QLD, Australia;School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, 4811, Townsville City, QLD, Australia;

关键词: Microalgal oil;    Fatty acid;    Extract yield;    Solvent polarity;    Supercritical CO;    Lipid profile;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2859-13-14

 received in 2013-07-26, accepted in 2014-01-19,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Microalgae cells have the potential to rapidly accumulate lipids, such as triacylglycerides that contain fatty acids important for high value fatty acids (e.g., EPA and DHA) and/or biodiesel production. However, lipid extraction methods for microalgae cells are not well established, and there is currently no standard extraction method for the determination of the fatty acid content of microalgae. This has caused a few problems in microlagal biofuel research due to the bias derived from different extraction methods. Therefore, this study used several extraction methods for fatty acid analysis on marine microalga Tetraselmis sp. M8, aiming to assess the potential impact of different extractions on current microalgal lipid research. These methods included classical Bligh & Dyer lipid extraction, two other chemical extractions using different solvents and sonication, direct saponification and supercritical CO2 extraction. Soxhlet-based extraction was used to weigh out the importance of solvent polarity in the algal oil extraction. Coupled with GC/MS, a Thermogravimetric Analyser was used to improve the quantification of microalgal lipid extractions. Among these extractions, significant differences were observed in both, extract yield and fatty acid composition. The supercritical extraction technique stood out most for effective extraction of microalgal lipids, especially for long chain unsaturated fatty acids. The results highlight the necessity for comparative analyses of microalgae fatty acids and careful choice and validation of analytical methodology in microalgal lipid research.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Li et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014