Fucoxanthin, diadinoxanthin and diatoxanthin are carotenoids found in brown algae and most other heterokonts. These pigments are involved in photosynthetic and photoprotective reactions, and they have many potential health benefits. They can be extracted from diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum by sonication, extraction with chloroform : methanol and preparative thin layer chromatography. We assessed the utility of an additional column chromatography step in purification of these pigments. This novel addition to the isolation protocol increased the purity of fucoxanthin and allowed for concentration of diadinoxanthin and diatoxanthin before HPLC separation. The enhanced protocol is useful for obtaining high purity pigments for biochemical studies.
Phaeodactylum tricornutum is commonly spotted marine diatom species. It is known of its advantages as model organism used in many scientific applications, such as sequenced genome and ease culture. Toxic elements pollution is frequent issue in developing countries since elimination of such contamination is expensive, and dangerous to human health. Bioremediation is often seen as a solution of this problem. In this work P. tricornutum is analyzed as a potential bioremediating agent in sea and freshwater. Ability to growth in different concentrations of arsenic, cadmium and mercury is tested. It is investigated if P. tricornutum is able to proliferate in freshwater samples taken from river. At last concentration of every listed element is evaluated before and after culture. It is concluded that P. tricornutum has huge potential as a bioremediating organism.
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