A Review on Methods Used in Analysis of Microalgae Lipid Composition

Abstract

The present paper provides a brief overview of the most recent techniques for microalgae lipid analysis such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC), mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The application of HPLC technique is to break down lipid into smaller fractions such as neutral lipid and polar lipid. MS technique is known as less sensitive than GC technique thus requires coupling with other techniques in order to analyze the microalgae lipid. On the other hand, NMR technique provides comprehensive information on the molecular structure of microalgae lipid but it has disadvantage as the signals may overlap in the spectrum. Notably, GC coupled with flame ionization detector (FID) is the fundamental method which is fast with high accuracy when analyzing microalgae lipid.

Microalgae as Sustainable Bio-Factories of Healthy Lipids: Evaluating Fatty Acid Content and Antioxidant Activity

“…The FAs profiled for these different microalgae were consistent with what has been reported in previous studies for each alga, concerning FA, but with differences in the FA contents [ 31 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 ], namely the present work reports higher amounts of ω-3 FA. These differences may be due to the different growth conditions for the microalgae studied, the use of different extraction methodologies (e.g., using different solvents and mixtures of solvents), different derivatization methodologies, or different platforms for data acquisition (e.g., GC-FID) [ 57 , 58 ]. Despite a few common FA species, each microalga had a unique FA signature ( Table 2 ), with microalgae from the same phylum showing similar profiles and clustering at higher levels, as observed in the principal component analysis (PCA) ( Figure 2 ) and in the hierarchical clustering analysis ( Figure S1 ).…”

A methodological review on the characterization of microalgal biofilm and its extracellular polymeric substances

“…Reversed phase HPLC is preferred owning to its higher separation selectivity and sensitivity as compared with anion exchange (fall of electrochemical response due to presence of peptides) (Dai et al, 2010). Evaporative light scattering detector can be considered to pair with HPLC as this type of detector offers high flexibility, short stabilization time, zero adjustment during operation, high sensitivity than UV (Nguyen et al, 2017). Recently, miniaturized micro HPLC (μHPLC) systems have garnered extensive attention in view of their high‐throughput analysis performance at point‐of‐care.…”

Microalgae as Sustainable Biofactories to Produce High-Value Lipids: Biodiversity, Exploitation, and Biotechnological Applications

“…However, the challenge with microalgal lipidomic studies lies in addressing its vast complexity and chemical heterogeneity [147]. GC-MS methods are recognized by their high detection sensitivity, accuracy, and excellent reproducibility; nevertheless, sample pretreatment (e.g., hydrolysis, derivatization) needs to be performed for samples [148]. A trimethylsilyl 2,2,2trifluoro-N-trimethylsilylethanimidate (BSTFA) derivatization with GC-MS has been used as a simple, fast, low-cost, and powerful tool to gain in-depth knowledge on unknown but relevant lipids [149].…”