Fluorescence activated cell-sorting principles and applications in microalgal biotechnology

Microalgal biotechnology has gained increasing attention over the last few decades as a next-generation driver for obtaining food, feed and biofuels and to carry out bioremediation of effluents and CO2 mitigation. Flow cytometry (FC) and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) have recently acquired outstanding importance in the development of high-throughput methodologies. For example, bioprospecting novel species using FACS widened the current portfolio of available strains for drug discovery and biomass production in large-scale production systems. Moreover, FACS has recently prompted several approaches for the effective improvement of microalgal strains by means of genetic engineering, serial selection and random mutagenesis. In the upcoming years, routine implementation of FC and FACS is expected to further bring forward the field of microalgal biotechnological research as occurred with mammalian cells in biomedical sciences. This review highlights the recent developments of FACS applications to different biotechnological goals, as well as the principles and details of FACS-based microalgal analysis. In addition, the future perspectives of novel and innovative approaches of FACS applications in microalgal biotechnology are suggested and discussed.