What is best way to store the algal biomass? Generally, freshly harvested biomass is used to determine the biochemical parameters (lipid, protein, carbohydrate etc); but under unavoidable circumstances where should the harvested biomass be stored before analysis?
Sometimes certain amount of unused biomass remains after the analysis, storing this biomass at room temperature alters its properties?
What is suitable option to store the algal lipids before preparing the samples for FAME analysis?
The biomass could be store at -20C,after harvested, in some case could extract the lipids directly in present very small amount of antioxidant to prevent oxidative process in it, then stored the lipid at - 80 C.
In our lab a pellet of the centrofuged biomass frozen at -20C is well preserved for several weeks (months). If your downstream requires freeze-drying then you can even keep in a fridge (preserving from moisture)
Biomass can be stored at -20oC. It is always better to store not more than a 2 months as you may observe loss in lipids as well as chlorophyll. In my observations during my laboratory studies on effect of storage on biochemical composition of microalgae, I observed loss of lipids and pigments from biomass stored at 4oC where as -20oC the loss is negligible
