Amino Acids Are an Ineffective Fertilizer for Dunaliella spp. Growth

Public Deposited
Analytics

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
Request Version for Screen Reader
Creator
  • Murphree, Colin A.
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Plant and Microbial Biology; North Carolina State University
  • Dums, Jacob T.
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Plant and Microbial Biology; North Carolina State University
  • Jain, Siddharth K.
    • Other Affiliation: Biogen
  • Zhao, Chengsong
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Plant Pathology; Physiology; and Weed Science; Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
  • Young, Danielle Y.
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Plant and Microbial Biology; North Carolina State University
  • Khoshnoodi, Nicole
    • Other Affiliation: Research Triangle High School
  • Tikunov, Andrey
    • Affiliation: School of Medicine, UNC/NCSU Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering - Biomedical Engineering
  • Macdonald, Jeffrey
    • Affiliation: School of Medicine, UNC/NCSU Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering - Biomedical Engineering
  • Pilot, Guillaume
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Plant Pathology; Physiology; and Weed Science; Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
  • Sederoff, Heike
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Plant and Microbial Biology; North Carolina State University
Abstract
  • Autotrophic microalgae are a promising bioproducts platform. However, the fundamental requirements these organisms have for nitrogen fertilizer severely limit the impact and scale of their cultivation. As an alternative to inorganic fertilizers, we investigated the possibility of using amino acids from deconstructed biomass as a nitrogen source in the genus Dunaliella. We found that only four amino acids (glutamine, histidine, cysteine, and tryptophan) rescue Dunaliella spp. growth in nitrogen depleted media, and that supplementation of these amino acids altered the metabolic profile of Dunaliella cells. Our investigations revealed that histidine is transported across the cell membrane, and that glutamine and cysteine are not transported. Rather, glutamine, cysteine, and tryptophan are degraded in solution by a set of oxidative chemical reactions, releasing ammonium that in turn supports growth. Utilization of biomass-derived amino acids is therefore not a suitable option unless additional amino acid nitrogen uptake is enabled through genetic modifications of these algae.
Date of publication
Keyword
DOI
Identifier
Resource type
  • Article
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Journal title
  • Frontiers in Plant Science
Journal volume
  • 8
Language
  • English
ISSN
  • 1664-462X

Relations

Parents:

This work has no parents.

In Collection:

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details EuropePMC-PMC5445130.pdf 2017 Public Download