Water-soluble vitamin contents of Euglena gracilis z.

Biochemistry and Physiology of Vitamins in Euglena

“…gracilis Z is one of the few microorganisms that simultaneously produce antioxidant vitamins such as β-carotene and vitamins C and E. In order to efficiently produce these vitamins, cells have been grown photoheterotrophically and transferred to photoautotrophic conditions (Takeyama et al 1997). When E. gracilis Z cells were grown in fed-batch culture under photoheterotrophic conditions, their density reached 19 g L medium −1 after 145 h. The subsequent transfer of these cells to photoautotrophic conditions increased the vitamin content to 71.0 mg L −1 of β-carotene, 30.1 mg L −1 of vitamin E (α-tocopherol), and 86.5 mg L −1 of vitamin C. When Euglena was grown at 27 °C for 6 days in the illumination in heterotrophic medium supplemented with an excess of each of the following water-soluble vitamins and related compounds (vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, vitamin C, biotin, folic acid, pantothenic acid, nicotinic acid, and p-aminobenzoic acid), none of the added vitamins affected cell growth and Euglena cells took up and accumulated nicotinic acid and vitamins B1 and B12, but not the other vitamins (Ochi et al 1988b). The maximum intracellular content of the vitamins in cells grown at 27 °C for 6 days in the light were: vitamin B1, 7.9 ± 0.3 (mg; 100 g dry basis); vitamin B2, 3.5 ± 0.2; vitamin B6, 7.5 ± 0.6; vitamin B12, 1.4 ± 0.2; vitamin C, 27.2 ± 0.4; folic acid, 1.7 ± 0.5; pantothenic acid, 12.9 ± 0.1; nicotinic acid, 41.0 ± 0.2; biotin, 4.6 ± 0.3.…”