I am growing chlorella on a mixture of organic carbon source, which contains mainly glycerol, but also some fatty acid, and perhaps a little pigments. In analyzing the total organic carbon, the machine would take all into account as the toc. However, does it make sense, or can Chlorella or any microalgae feed on fatty acids or pigments for carbon? Thanks.
Microalgae do use fatty acids as carbon source, but under stressed conditions. If the medium contains easily metabolizable forms of carbon it would first utilize that as carbon source; in this case glycerol, would be the preferred carbon source over fatty acids. However i cannot say for sure that fatty acids will not be metabolized at all in presence of glycerol.
And also i am sure you will find enough reading material for Chlorella, as it is a very well explored algae.
Best wishes.
Many microalgae do not use organic substrates, the ability to grow on e.g. glucose or glycerol may even differ between strains of the same species.
Clorella will probably grow on glucose and acetate, not shure about glycerol.
You might be interested in Galdieria sulfuraria, this nice algae can use many different organic compounds.
Thank you both, Aparna and Gerd. Chlorella species have been studied extensively for heterotrophic or mixotrophic growth on glucose, acetate, glycerol, etc., mostly for the sake of lipids production, but maybe not so much on fatty acids or oil, as this might create problems for aeration if we mix oil into our medium. That's my thought, but they could consume oil under stress, as Aparna mentioned. So I think I would take my impure glycerol for a total organic carbon analysis. Again, thank you guys for the discussion.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Biochemistry
- Enzymology
- Enzymes