Astaxanthin-Producing Green Microalga Haematococcus pluvialis: From Single Cell to High Value Commercial Products
By M. Shah, Yuan Liang, Jay J. Cheng, M. Daroch. Frontiers in Plant Science, 2016
818 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Many species of microalgae have been used as source of nutrient rich food, feed, and health promoting compounds. Among the commercially important microalgae, Haematococcus pluvialis is the richest source of natural astaxanthin which is considered as “super anti-oxidant.” Natural astaxanthin produced by H. pluvialis has significantly greater antioxidant capacity than the synthetic one. Astaxanthin has important applications in the nutraceuticals, cosmetics, food, and aquaculture industries. It is now evident that, astaxanthin can significantly reduce free radicals and oxidative stress and help human body maintain a healthy state. With extraordinary potency and increase in demand, astaxanthin is one of the high-value microalgal products of the future.This comprehensive review summarizes the most important aspects of the biology, biochemical composition, biosynthesis, and astaxanthin accumulation in the cells of H. pluvialis and its wide range of applications for humans and animals. In this paper, important and recent developments ranging from cultivation, harvest and postharvest bio-processing technologies to metabolic control and genetic engineering are reviewed in detail, focusing on biomass and astaxanthin production from this biotechnologically important microalga. Simultaneously, critical bottlenecks and major challenges in commercial scale production; current and prospective global market of H. pluvialis derived astaxanthin are also presented in a critical manner. A new biorefinery concept for H. pluvialis has been also suggested to guide toward economically sustainable approach for microalgae cultivation and processing. This report could serve as a useful guide to present current status of knowledge in the field and highlight key areas for future development of H. pluvialis astaxanthin technology and its large scale commercial implementation.
Subfields: Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9d80ef2fc2792a2280300aef267e11530c337077
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- M. Rodríguez‐Concepción
- Changfu Zhu
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- Loudes Gómez-Gómez
- D. Hornero‐Méndez
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Citations in the corpus
- A global perspective on carotenoids: Metabolism, biotechnology, and benefits for nutrition and health. (2018, background): “mainly lutein and -carotene whereas exposure to stressing conditions results in the cessation of cell division and their transformation into cyst cells (called aplanospores) that accumulate astaxanthin up to 4 % of the total dry mass [158].”
- Directed evolution of the fusion enzyme for improving astaxanthin biosynthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (2022, background): “However, there are significant differences between chemically synthesized astaxanthin and natural astaxanthin in structure and function, and the oxidation resistance and stability of chemically synthesized astaxanthin are far lower than natural astaxanthin [4,5].”
- Over-accumulation of astaxanthin in Haematococcus pluvialis through chloroplast genetic engineering (2018, background): “The fresh water chlorophyte Haematococcus pluvialis, is the main source of natural astaxanthin (3,3′-dihydroxy-diketo-β,β′-carotene-4, 4-dione), a high-value secondary carotenoid that belongs to the xanthophylls family [1,5].”