Fortification of Chlorella vulgaris with citrus peel amino acid for improvement biomass and protein quality

Zhila Heydari Koochi; Kourosh Ghodrat Jahromi; Gholamreza Kavoosi; Asghar Ramezanian

doi:10.1016/j.btre.2023.e00806

Fortification of Chlorella vulgaris with citrus peel amino acid for improvement biomass and protein quality

Biotechnol Rep (Amst). 2023 Jun 19:39:e00806. doi: 10.1016/j.btre.2023.e00806. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Authors

Zhila Heydari Koochi¹, Kourosh Ghodrat Jahromi¹, Gholamreza Kavoosi¹, Asghar Ramezanian²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biotechnology, School of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
² Department of Horticultural Science, School of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.

Abstract

The amino acid extract (protein hydrolysate) from various citrus peels was employed as an organic nutrition source for the culture of Chlorella to investigate their effects on the biomass and protein quality of the microalgae. The major amino acids in citrus peels included proline, asparagine, aspartate, alanine, serine, and arginine. The most plentiful amino acids in the Chlorella were alanine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, glycine, serine, threonine, leucine, proline, lysine, and arginine. Adding the citrus peel amino acid extracts to the Chlorella medium enhanced overall microalgal biomass (more than two folds p < 0.05) and protein content (more than 1.25 fold, p < 0.05). Citrus peel amino acids increase essential amino acids and decrease the non-protein amino acid of Chlorella (p > 0.05). The present research shows that citrus peels have good nutritional quality and could be used for the inexpensive cultivation of Chlorella biomass with potential utility for food application.

Keywords: Amino acid profile; Biomass; Chlorella vulgaris; Citrus peel; Protein quality.