A cascade extraction of active phycocyanin and fatty acids from Galdieria phlegrea

The setup ofan economic and sustainable method to increase the production and commercialization ofproducts from microalgae, beyond niche markets, is a challenge. Here, a cascade approach has been designed to optimize the recovery of high valuable bioproducts starting from the wet biomass ofGaldieria phlegrea. This unicellular thermo-acidophilic red alga can accumulate high- value compounds and can live under conditions considered hostile to most other species. Extractions were performed in two sequential steps: a conventional high-pressure procedure to recover phycocyanins and a solvent extraction to obtain fatty acids. Phycocyanins were purified to the highest purification grade reported so far and were active as antioxidants on a cell-based model. Fatty acids isolated from the residual biomass contained high amount ofPUFAs, more than those recovered from the raw biomass. Thus, a simple, economic, and high effective procedure was set up to isolate phycocyanin at high purity levels and PUFAs.