THE BIOTECHNOLOGY OF CULTURING DUNALIELLA SALINA FOR THE PRODUCTION OF SOME VALUABLE METABOLITES

Abstract

Dunaliella salina is one of the microalgae that naturally accumulates industrially interesting products. It is a halotolerant unicellular wall-less green alga that can flourish and grow in cultures containing high salt concentration. It was found by many authors that Dunalie/la species under appropriate growth conditions accumulate high quantities of highly priced products (glycerol, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, 13-carotene, protein, chlorophylls and others). In the present work, the growth of Dunaliella salina and the synthesis of some valuable metabolites naniely 13-carotene, protein and chlorophylls 'a" and 'b" were analyzed. The effect of three varying wastes namely molasses, whey and fermentation liquor on growth and synthesis of these metabolites were also studied. The work is divided into two parts: Part 1: In which growth and synthesis of some metabolites were analyzed for the basal medium (MH medium) and 1/4 basal medium in the presence or absence of the three wastes: whey, molasses and fermentation liquor and under different concentrations. Part II: The results obtained from Part I were statistically treated in Part IIby using the Plackett and Burman design (Greasham & Inamine, 1986) for selecting the significant effective element/s for growth and synthesis of these metabolites, the Yates method (1937) in order to find out the most effective factor/s that played a specific role in the growth and synthesis of these metabolites and the steepest ascent method (Box &