Chlorella vulgaris is a microalgae belonging to the order of the Chlorococcales, of the Oocytaceae family, of the genus Chlorella, which has a green colour due to the chloroplasts it contains. Its shape is spherical with a size that varies from 1 to 10 microns. These microalgae contain, in addition to chlorophyll, a significant amount of intracellular proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamin C, β-carotenes and B vitamins (B1, B2, B6 and B12), which is why it is commonly used for the preparation of food supplements, as well as for the production of cosmetics, clinical treatments and even for the detoxification of heavy metals in wastewater. For this reason, the following review speaks from the morphology of the microalgae C. vulgaris to recent investigations regarding the primary and secondary metabolites. This research also provides an overview of the areas of opportunity for the development of new products and process improvements in order to increase the existing yields so far to optimize responses based on the desired products, the formulation of various growth media or the design of new photobioreactors which allow greater control of growth conditions and easy scaling for high productions at the industrial level that cover the current global needs.
C. vulgaris is a unicellular microalgae, whose growth depends on the conditions in which it is found, synthesizing primary and secondary metabolites in different proportions. Therefore, we analyzed and established conditions in which it was possible to increase the yields of metabolites obtained at the flask level, which could then be scaled to the photobioreactor level. As a methodology, a screening design was applied, which evaluated three factors: type of substrate (sodium acetate or glycerol); substrate concentration; and exposure-time to red light (photoperiod: 16:8 and 8:16 light/darkness). The response variables were: cell division; biomass; substrate consumption; and antioxidant activity in intracellular metabolites (ABTS•+ and DPPH•). As a result, the sodium acetate condition of 0.001 g/L, in a photoperiod of 16 h of light, presented a doubling time (Td = 4.84 h) and a higher rate of division (σ = 0.20 h−1), having a final biomass concentration of 2.075 g/L. In addition, a higher concentration of metabolites with antioxidant activity was found in the sodium acetate (0.629 Trolox equivalents mg/L ABTS•+ and 0.630 Trolox equivalents mg/L DPPH•). For the glycerol, after the same photoperiod (16 h of light and 8 h of darkness), the doubling time (Td) was 4.63 h, with a maximum division rate of σ = 0.18 h−1 and with a biomass concentration at the end of the kinetics of 1.4 g/L. Sodium acetate under long photoperiods, therefore, is ideal for the growth of C. vulgaris, which can then be scaled to the photobioreactor level.
The pomegranate (Punica granatum) is a bush with abundant foliage originating from Iran, it was brought to Mexico during the time of the conquest and whose main characteristic is the fruit it generates, which is a big, globose berry with thick, shiny skin of red, green or yellow colour depending on the specie of pomegranate and the ripening stage in which itis founding. Recent research has shown that pomegranate contains chemical compounds with antioxidant and bactericidal activities resulting from its secondary metabolism as what are mainly polyphenols, terpenes and alkaloids, which affect the specific concentration of the state of maturity of the product and where most of them, polyphenolic compounds, are found in large quantities at this stage, presenting antioxidant activity and bactericide. The present article has the objective to analyse the ripening stage of three varieties of mexican pomegranate (Wonderful, Apaseo and Tecozautla) through a physicochemical characterization for which the morphology (sizes, colours and hardness) was analyzed as the amount of total suspended solids, pH and titratable acidity in the juice of the product to finish with the determination of the concentration of polyphenolic compounds with possible antioxidant and bactericide activity.
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