RECOVERING A BIOTECHNOLOGICAL IMPORTANT SPIRULINA PLATENSIS STRAIN: ISOLATION AND MAINTENANCE OF MONOCULTURES

MARÍA JOSÉ RAMAYON1; IVANNA CECILIA PIZZOLINI; MARTA SOFÍA GOZZI; PAULA ANALÍA ZIELLA; SANDRA IRENE PITTA-ALVAREZ

Mar del Plata

Encuentro; VIII Encuentro Latinoamericano y del Caribe de Biotecnología REDBIO-Argentina 2013; 2013

REDBIO

Several activities were initiated with the purpose of building a culture collection for the new Microalgae Culture Laboratory at UADE. This study refers to the recovery of a strain of Spirulina platensis, originally from Italy. This strain had been grown massively over twenty years in the Province of Buenos Aires in pools in greenhouses that are not currently in use. The recovery is significant because the strain is already adapted to the environmental conditions of Buenos Aires. This adaptation is usually a long process and it is an essential step to obtain optimum yields of biomass production. Spirulina grows at high pH values, therefore aliquots of the original sample were taken and cultured in Zarrouk medium at pH values of 9, 10, 11 and 12. After a week, in cultures with pH 9, the algae Chrococcus and Chlorella were predominant, while in the remaining pH conditions, particularly at pH 11, Spirulina was the main one. As a result, an aliquot of this culture was transferred to fresh medium with pH 11 and, through successive subcultures, a monoculture was obtained. Discussions related to the phycoremediation applications of this actively growing strain in the Microalgae Culture Laboratory (UADE) will be presented.