Mexican Microalgae Biodiversity and State-Of-The-Art Extraction Strategies to Meet Sustainable Circular Economy Challenges: High-Value Compounds and Their Applied Perspectives

Abstract

In recent years, the demand for naturally derived products has hiked with enormous pressure to propose or develop state-of-the-art strategies to meet sustainable circular economy challenges. Microalgae possess the flexibility to produce a variety of high-value products of industrial interests. From pigments such as phycobilins or lutein to phycotoxins and several polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), microalgae have the potential to become the primary producers for the pharmaceutical, food, and agronomical industries. Also, microalgae require minimal resources to grow due to their autotrophic nature or by consuming waste matter, while allowing for the extraction of several valuable side products such as hydrogen gas and biodiesel in a single process, following a biorefinery agenda. From a Mexican microalgae biodiversity perspective, more than 70 different local species have been characterized and isolated, whereas, only a minimal amount has been explored to produce commercially valuable products, thus ignoring their potential as a locally available resource. In this paper, we discuss the microalgae diversity present in Mexico with their current applications and potential, while expanding on their future applications in bioengineering along with other industrial sectors. In conclusion, the use of available microalgae to produce biochemically revenuable products currently represents an untapped potential that could lead to the solution of several problems through green technologies. As such, if the social, industrial and research communities collaborate to strive towards a greener economy by preserving the existing biodiversity and optimizing the use of the currently available resources, the enrichment of our society and the solution to several environmental problems could be attained.

Potential TSPO Ligand and Photooxidation Quencher Isorenieratene from Arctic Ocean Rhodococcus sp. B7740

“…Carotenoid is one kind of natural essential pigment, which exists in almost all complex or unicellular organisms. For example, MXs also can be produced and collected from marine origin algal and microorganism [7,8,9]. They are presented in human diets as a nutrient enhancer, colorful agent, even medicine [10].…”

Comparison of Galdieria growth and photosynthetic activity in different culture systems

“…However, algae grown in the Flat-UPB revealed higher percentage levels of carotenoids compared to those grown in the Tubular-B, indicating a stressful condition of the alga. Indeed, carotenoids perform an essential photoprotective role by quenching the triplet state chlorophyll molecules, scavenging toxic oxygen species formed during light stress, dissipating harmful excess excitation energy under light stress (Pisal and Lele 2005;Galasso et al 2017;Takaichi 2011;González-Fernández et al 2012;Sosa-Hernández et al 2019;Sun et al 2016).…”

“…Indeed, Galdieria has been the subject of different studies in algal biotechnology. It was used for wastewater treatment (Ju et al 2016;Henkanette-Gedera et al 2016;da Silva et al 2016;Carbone et al 2018;Galasso et al 2019;Alalwan et al 2019;Sosa-Hernández et al 2019) and for recovery of rare earth elements (Minoda et al 2015). Moreover, this organism produces high levels of phycobiliproteins that are used in diverse medical and cosmetic products (Schmidt et al 2005;Graverholt and Eriksen 2007;Sørensen et al 2013;Eriksen 2018) and in different compounds with antioxidant properties (Carfagna et al 2016).…”

A review on microalgae cultivation and harvesting, and their biomass extraction processing using ionic liquids

“…Other microalgae metabolites of interest include tocopherols, phenolics compounds, flavonoids, and vitamins that have been previously found in microalgae extracts of different species and may be potentially extracted using ILs [119][120][121]. These compounds have various therapeutics functions such as anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, anti-viral, antioxidant, and even anticancer effects [122,123].…”