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Investigation of in vitro digestibility of dietary microalga Chlorella vulgaris and cyanobacterium Spirulina platensis as a nutritional supplement

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Abstract

Microalgal proteins are promising sources for functional nutrition and a sustainable candidate for nutraceutical formulations. They also gain importance due to emerging focus on a healthy nutrition and increase in the number of chronic diseases. In this study, dried dietary species of microalga, Chlorella vulgaris, and cyanobacterium Spirulina platensis were hydrolyzed with pancreatin enzyme to obtain protein hydrolysates. The hydrolysis yield of biomass was 55.1 ± 0.1 and 64.8 ± 3.6% for C. vulgaris and S. platensis; respectively. Digestibility, as an indicator for dietary utilization, was also investigated. In vitro protein digestibility (IVPD) values depicted that cell wall structure due to the taxonomical differences affected both hydrolysis and digestibility yield of the crude biomass (p < 0.05). Epithelial cells (Vero) maintained their viability around 70%, even in relatively higher concentrations of hydrolysates in the culture. The protein hydrolysates showed no any antimicrobial activities. This study clearly shows that the conventional protein sources in nutraceutical formulations such as soy, whey, and fish proteins can be replaced by enzymatic hydrolysates of microalgae, which shows elevated digestibility values as a sustainable and reliable source.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to Prof. Fazilet Vardar-Sukan, Prof. Figen Zihnioglu, and also Dr. Zeliha Demirel from Ege University for their valuable discussions, advices, and shares on their expertise related to the subject; to the EGERT Inc. for their kind donation of Spirulina platensis biomass; to Prof. Ismet Deliloglu-Gurhan for supplying the cell line; and, finally, to Ege University Scientific Research Projects (BAP) for their financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bioengineering Department, Ege University, 35100, Bornova, Izmir, Turkey

    Ayse Kose, Murat Elibol & Suphi S. Oncel

  2. Bio-Acoustic-MEMS in Medicine (BAMM) Laboratory, Department of Radiology, Canary Center at Stanford for Cancer Early Detection, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, 94394, USA

    Mehmet O. Ozen

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  1. Ayse Kose
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  2. Mehmet O. Ozen
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  3. Murat Elibol
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  4. Suphi S. Oncel
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Correspondence to Murat Elibol.

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Kose, A., Ozen, M.O., Elibol, M. et al. Investigation of in vitro digestibility of dietary microalga Chlorella vulgaris and cyanobacterium Spirulina platensis as a nutritional supplement. 3 Biotech 7, 170 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-017-0832-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-017-0832-4

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