The marine environment comprises of diversity of organisms which are potential source of bioactive and secondary metabolites, with immense application in pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and functional foods. Among marine organisms, marine algae are eukaryotic organism which utilises light for photosynthesis and are rich sources of structurally diverse bioactive compounds and beneficial poly unsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). PUFAs from microalgae have numerous health benefits and are suitable for consumption by vegetarians and vegans both. Hence, the present study was conducted for investigating indigenous algal strains rich in PUFAs and the concentration of the extracted PUFAs by novel nano-biocatalytic system.
For this purpose, diverse marine bodies were targeted for water samples collection from the state of western India “Goa”. The algal cultivation was carried out under optimum growth conditions of light and nutrients regimes for the production of lipids to screen the strains rich in PUFAs by Gas chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The selected strains were subjected for ITS sequencing and were further studied under media nutrient stress. Three different marine algae media with different level of nutrients and salinity were examined for their fatty acid profiling especially α-linolenic acid (ALA) contents. The results obtained displayed up to 50% of ALA accumulation in screened Chlorella sp., in media with low nutrient s. Finally, the lipids of algae rich in PUFAs were hydrolysed by the the lipase mediated silica based nano-biocatalytic system. It was found that ALA contents were increased after the enzyme mediated hydrolysis when compared to unhydrolysed lipid fractions. Consequently, the study displayed an understanding towards the sustainable and advanced approach towards PUFA/omega-3 fatty acids concentration by targeting microalgal fatty acids of interest.