Potential of Lipid Metabolism in Marine Diatoms for Biofuel Production
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d’Ippolito et al. Biotechnology for Biofuels (2015) 8:28 DOI 10.1186/s13068-015-0212-4 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Potential of lipid metabolism in marine diatoms for biofuel production Giuliana d’Ippolito*, Angela Sardo, Debora Paris, Filomena Monica Vella, Maria Grazia Adelfi, Pierpaolo Botte, Carmela Gallo and Angelo Fontana Abstract Background: Diatoms are an ecologically relevant group of microalgae that are not commonly considered for bio-oil production even if they are responsible for massive blooms at sea. Seventeen diatom species were screened for their capacity to produce biomass and lipids, in relation to their growth rate. Triglyceride levels were also assessed as a preferential source of biofuels. Results: Using statistical analysis, two centric diatoms, Thalassiosira weissflogii and Cyclotella cryptica, were selected as good candidates for oil production. Lipid levels significantly increased when the two diatoms were cultivated in a two-stage process under nitrogen limitation. The effect was less pronounced in cultures where silicon was reduced to 20% of the standard supply. Nitrogen limitation did not affect growth rates but led to lipid remodeling and de novo synthesis of triacylglycerols. Conclusions: Triacylglycerols in T. weissflogii and C. cryptica can account for up to 82% and 88% of total glycerolipids, thereby suggesting that the two species are promising candidates for large-scale experimentation for biofuel production. Keywords: Diatoms, Biofuels, Lipid metabolism, Microalgae, Bioenergy Background These microorganisms are the main component of the Diatoms (Bacillariophyta) are photosynthetic unicellular phytoplankton and play a major role in the global cyc- organisms with characteristic silica cell walls (frustules). ling of carbon and silicon at sea [9,10]. In particular, Over 8,000 different species are described growing their photosynthetic activity contributes to almost half worldwide in lakes and at sea, but according to different of oceanic primary productivity. As such, diatoms are authors [1-3], extant species are estimated to range the major component of the so-called biological carbon between 20,000 and 200,000 species. The lineage is pump [11], and the burial of diatoms over geologic time traditionally divided into two orders: centric diatoms or has produced an important fraction of petroleum de- Centrales that are radially symmetrical and pennate dia- posits [12]. toms or Pennales that are bilaterally symmetrical. The Diatoms produce oil drops that are stored intracellu- first order is further subdivided into polar and non-polar larly as a reserve material during the vegetative period of centrics, whereas the latter order includes the classes growth, with percentages that vary from less than 23% Bacillariophyceae and Fragilariophyceae according to the to greater than 45% of dry cell weight [13]. Physiological presence or absence of a raphe [4]. Although usually de- and genetic manipulations have also showed the possibil- scribed as microalgae, diatoms have very distinctive ity of increasing the amount of lipids in the cellular mass traits that set them apart from other photoautotrophic and re-invigorated studies regarding the potential of eukaryotes [5-8]. affording oil production by these microorganisms [14]. The present work is focused on the potential of dia- toms as a source of biofuels, especially planktonic spe- cies that are responsible for massive algal blooms in the * Correspondence: [email protected] Istituto di Chimica Biomolecolare (ICB) - CNR, Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 ocean. The aims of this study were (1) to test biomass Pozzuoli, NA, Italy and lipid productivity of 17 diatom species comparing © 2015 d'Ippolito et al.; licensee BioMed Central. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. d’Ippolito et al. Biotechnology for Biofuels (2015) 8:28 Page 2 of 10 these results with those obtained from four non-diatom Data were processed by PCA which modeled and de- microalgae chosen among the genera traditionally con- scribed the variation of biomass and chemical descrip- sidered for oil production [15-17]; (2) to select promis- tors (productivity of biomass and lipids) together with ing diatom species by applying principal component quantitative loadings on the composition of the lipid analysis (PCA); and (3) to verify the response to silicon fraction (percentage of lipids per cell dry weight and per- (Si) and nitrogen (N) limitation on lipid metabolism by a centage of triglycerides per total lipid content), stability two-stage cultivation model [18]. of the lipid components (free fatty acids content), and culture rate (duplication time). All variables were nor- Results and discussion malized by a range scaling method and reciprocal values Cell growth and principal component analysis on were used for duplication time and free fatty acids con- chemical and biochemical parameters tent, which negatively affected the selection process. Established cultures of 17 diatom species and four spe- With these constraints, replicates of microalgal species cies of green microalgae belonging to the classes clustered in four well-defined groups with robust statis- Eustigmatophyceae and Chlorophyceae were grown in tical significance (about 80%) and an overall clear separ- standard f/2 medium. Each microalgal strain showed spe- ation of diatom from non-diatom samples (Figure 1A). cific slope and duration of the growth curves (Additional The associated loading plot highlighted the contribution file 1: Figures S1 and S2), which presumably also reflected of each parameter to this distribution (Figure 1B). variability in cellular and metabolic responses. Since it was Four species of centric diatoms of the order Thalassio- not possible to determine a homogenous and common sirales, namely C. cryptica and strains of T. weissflogii day of harvesting for each strain, each culture was stopped (cluster I), grouped in a restricted area of the first quad- in the stationary phase, when the slope of the growth rant of the plot. Major difference in duplication time curve showed a negative ratio of the vertical change to the and lipid percentage, especially triacylglycerols, deter- horizontal change between two consecutive cell counts. mined the separation of these species from D. salina, According to the physiology of each species, this transi- D. tertiolecta,andN. salina (cluster II) although lipid prod- tion occurred within time intervals ranging from a few uctivity in the two groups was in some cases comparable − − days to a few weeks. (for example, 7.3 mg L 1 day 1 for T. weissflogii P09 and − − Main cultivation parameters and gross chemical pro- N. salina or 9.7 mg L 1 day 1 for D. tertiolecta). Cluster duction of each microalgal strain are summarized in II was characterized by high productivity and included Table 1. Diatom cells were generally larger than those of the algal genera that have attracted considerable interest non-diatom species (Additional file 1: Table S1), showing in the search for biological candidates for production of lower cell density but higher growth rates, as measured energy from biomass [15,19]. Of the green microalgae, by the number of cellular divisions (doubling time, Td). only Chlamydomonas sp. was found in another cluster The fastest growing strains (Chaetoceros species, Thalas- together with T. pseudonana, C. fusiformis, P. tricornutum, siosira rotula, Thalassiosira weissflogii P09, Cylindrotheca and Melosira octogona (cluster III) as result of the fusiformis,andPseudo-nitzschia pseudodelicatissima)dou- fairly small level of TAG in comparison to clusters I and bled three times faster than green microalgae (15 to 17 h II. It is interesting to note that cluster III included doubling time in diatoms compared to 44-83 h doubling T. pseudonana and P. tricornutum that are the most stud- time in non-diatoms). Despite the difference in absolute ied diatom species for production of biofuels up to now − biomass production (that is, 700 mg L 1 for Nannochloropsis [20-22]. The remaining microalgae were distributed in − − salina;500mgL1 for Dunaliella tertiolecta; 195 mg L 1 the fourth quadrant of the plot. They comprised most of − − of C. fusiformis;146mgL1 T. weissflogii P09; 247 mg L 1 the species (cluster IV) with very short duplication time − of Phaeodactylum tricornutum), the productivity (mg L 1 (between 15 and 23 h). In comparison to cluster I, these − day 1) of diatom species was comparable to non-diatoms diatoms showed low productivity and strong hydrolytic − − − − (for example, 33 mg L 1 day 1 N. salina;36mgL1 day 1 enzymatic activity that was responsible for releasing fatty − − − D. tertiolecta;27mgL1 day 1 C. fusiformis;24mgL1 acids from complex lipids [23,24]. This enzymatic − − day 1 T. weissflogii P09; and P. tricornutum 22 mg L 1 process caused a decrease in the major lipid classes and − day 1). On the other hand, lipids in a few diatom spe- a consequent increase in the levels of free fatty acids that cies (for example, T. weissflogii CCMP 1010 or Cyclotella negatively affected the biotechnological importance of cryptica CCMP 331) accounted for almost